Speaker 1: What exactly is ethnography? What does it look like? How do you do it? I'm Dr Elizabeth Yardley and I've been working as a social science academic for the last 20 years. Now in that time, ethnography has become incredibly popular. Ethnographic research can result in some absolutely groundbreaking discoveries, so it's important to find out a little bit about it before you decide whether it's the kind of thing that you want to do or not. Okay, so ethnography, bare bones basics, what is it? The word ethnography comes from the Greek word ethnos, which means people, nation or cultural group, and the word graphe, which means writing. So essentially that literally translates to writing about a group of people. Ethnographic research consists of an extended involvement with the social group that you're studying. You don't helicopter in and distribute a few questionnaires or conduct a few interviews and then helicopter out again after a couple of days. You are immersed in that social group for a period of months or even years. You hang around in the places and the spaces that are really important to the people you're studying. You observe your participants' behaviour. You listen to and participate in their conversations. You ask questions in those conversations. You might conduct more formal interviews with some members of the group. You will keep field notes as you go along. You might collect documents that are related to the group. Ultimately, you'll develop a really in-depth understanding of that group's culture and of people's behaviour and their attitudes and their values in the context of that culture. Examples of ethnographic studies in the social sciences include those that are popping up on the screen right now, and I'll include some links in the description to more details about these. So you can see that ethnography has been conducted in lots of different places. Businesses, sports clubs, street gangs, public sector institutions like schools, hospitals, doctor's surgeries, places of worship, community centres. Online spaces are becoming increasingly important to ethnographers too. Facebook groups, subreddits, the dark web, closed forums. And if you want me to do a separate video about online ethnography, let me know in the comments. So what are some of the things that you need to know about ethnography that are quite unique and different from other types of qualitative research? Firstly, getting in. Access is a much bigger deal than it is in any other kind of qualitative research. Because what you want, which is essentially to insert yourself into a community or group, that is kind of a big ask. And generally in the social sciences these days, you are going to be doing overt rather than covert ethnography. In overt ethnography, people know that you're a researcher and you're very clear about your intentions. In covert ethnography, on the other hand, you don't disclose that you're a researcher. Now the distinction isn't always a really clear one. Because even in some overt ethnographies, not everybody involved is going to know or realise or understand that you're a researcher. But given how incredibly risk-averse some institutional ethics committees have become recently, it's highly unlikely that you will receive permission to do a completely covert piece of ethnography when nobody involved knows what you're doing. Because that is considered to be too dangerous, too risky, and it gives ethics committees really squeaky bum cheeks. So we're going to assume that we are at the overt end of the spectrum in terms of the kind of ethnography we're thinking about when we're considering issues of access. The main point to make is that it is not easy to get access. It is not easy to get in. You might need to try several times or approach several different organisations or groups. Use friends, colleagues, contacts within the group. Enlist the help of your supervisor if they've got experience of working with the group that you want to do research with. Try and get a sponsor on the inside of the group who knows about your plans and actively supports them. It can be really helpful to have somebody who is a sponsor, who understands the value of your study, and they can kind of act as your advocate and plead your case to the other people in the group. Another way that you can enhance your chances of getting access is by being incredibly clear about what's in it for the group. What is the benefit to them of allowing you to come into their inner sanctum? It doesn't necessarily need to be something formal or official, but is there a skill that you've got? Is there something that you could help them out with? So if you're studying a group that has regular meetings, could you offer to bring the coffee or provide some food for those meetings? Could you help set up the room and tidy your way afterwards maybe? Now you've got to be a little bit careful with this and you've also got to be reflective and reflexive about the impact that this is going to have on the dynamics of the group. But it can be something that is really helpful to do that can ease your passage into a group that is hard to reach or hard to get into. Now you need to be super conscious and reflexive about how this might impact on your findings and how that might shift the dynamics of the group or the organisation. And don't turn it into a ridiculous amount of free labour. But offering to be helpful and useful in some regard might ease your access into the group. Another thing that could be helpful is to be 100% transparent about the research that you're doing and to explain your research to members of the group in language that they are going to understand. So language that isn't full of academic jargon and acronyms and all of that kind of stuff. Explain it in everyday terms. And most people are not going to know what ethnography means, so you're going to need to explain it in terms other than that. So rather than saying that you want to come in and do an in-depth ethnography that involves observation and semi-structured interviews, you might want to say something like this. I'd like to come and hang around with your group for a while and maybe speak to some members of the group in more detail and ask them some questions. Also, you've got to be prepared to compromise. The group that you want to do research with might let you have some level of access but not necessarily the amount of access that you really want. So think about what would be the minimum that you would be willing to accept and really be open to negotiate and compromise because it's not as easy as just turning up, asking for access and getting it. That very rarely happens. Next up, your presence. Once you've got access, once you're in, you have still got quite a lot of work to do in terms of being accepted by people within that group. It is not plain sailing. The people within the group might be a little bit suspicious of you. They might think that you are there to spy on them or that you're there to check up on them on behalf of other people. They might worry that the things they tell you are going to get back to their friends, their family, their colleagues, their bosses. And you may find that the group you want to do research with have got some bad experiences of outsiders coming in and being duplicitous or being deceitful. And this actually happens with one of my own PhD students who did a piece of research within an organisation that had been targeted by undercover journalists in the past. So everybody within that organisation was hyper vigilant when the student first went in there and they did not have a very easy time of it in the early days. And when people have these kind of concerns, they might actively lie to you. They might conceal things from you. They might misrepresent what's going on in that particular environment. And there will be some people within the group or the organisation who are never going to accept you. And you've just got to suck that up. But there are things that you can do to enhance the chances of being accepted by more people within the group or the organisation that you're studying. So firstly, be patient and realise that it takes time. Secondly, don't be judgmental about people's views or behaviours. Thirdly, be respectful of people and keep confidences when you're asked to because that may very well be some kind of test. Also, be consistent and persistent. So don't just helicopter in and out at random. If you say you'll be there every Tuesday, be there every Tuesday. And also be aware of key informants and how crucial they can be to your access. So they might be people who were your sponsors who helped you get in. And they can also be quite helpful to you whilst you're there. But again, you need to be cautious of this because they can become the lens through which you see the group or the organisation. And they may well have their own agenda. So do ensure that you think carefully about this stuff. Next up, field notes. Keeping notes during your ethnography is incredibly important. You need to be taking notes whilst you're in the field whenever something interesting or significant happens. And make sure that you get those notes down before your brain has a chance to warp or misremember it. If you're going to take notes as you go along and you're going to actually write your notes whilst you're in the field, make sure that people know that you're doing that and ensure that people know why you're doing that. Because it can be quite disconcerting to see somebody with a notepad and pen writing things down or somebody dictating into a digital recorder. So really do make sure that if you're going to be open about taking notes that people know exactly what you're doing. If you're not, if you're going to do it outside of the research environment, make sure that you are taking notes at least at the end of every day just so that you're not missing anything, you're not misrem, mis, misrem? Misremembering anything. So write down your notes as soon as you possibly can and ensure that you're writing them in a clear and concise way as well. You don't want to be looking back at them six months from now thinking, what on earth was this about? Or not being able to read your own handwriting. So make sure that they're clear, they're legible and that you include some context. So when you have a specific interaction that was particularly interesting, what was going on around that? What was happening that day? What was the general vibe? So make sure that you don't have random stuff that you're not able to put in a context. Also in your field notes, make sure that you are reflecting on your thoughts and your feelings about being in the field because as an ethnographer, you are the data collection instrument, okay? And you've got to be aware of your emotions and your thoughts and your feelings and how those might be impacting on your experience of the research environment. So take the time to think reflectively and reflexively. Lastly, exiting the field. Although some ethnographic studies can go on for an incredibly long time, none of them are going to go on forever. So there will come a point where you have to exit the field. You have to leave the research environment and you have to be quite conscious of how you go about doing this. Make sure that people know ahead of time how long you're going to be hanging out with them in their group or their organisation. Make sure that they're aware of the date that you're going to leave. And when that date comes around, start talking about your departure. Tell people what's going to happen next, especially in terms of any information they might have shared with you. Now, at the beginning of your study, you explain to people about informed consent and confidentiality and right to withdraw and all of that lovely stuff. But you might find that by the end of your research time, your research time in the field, you need to revisit that. You need to remind people of those things. You need to give them some reassurances about that stuff. So in a nutshell, when it comes to exiting the field, don't just disappear, okay? Because that can be incredibly disconcerting for your participants, especially if you're researching in an organisation that has had insiders come in before and not been particularly nice or been deceitful or been deceptive. So you want to maintain a positive relationship with that organisation. So please make sure you take the time to do that. And that brings this very quick overview of ethnography to a close. I hope you found this helpful. Feel free to drop any questions in the comments and tune in for my next video when I'll be sharing more tips and advice on the messy and the magical of the PhD journey. I'll see you then.