Chapter 22

Ethnographic Method

Faisal Ahmmed

Abstract This chapter explicates ethnographic method of qualitative research in the

light of the field experience of the author. Many graduate students face a challenge
in selecting appropriate qualitative methodology for their research. This might be
because of poor understanding of the principles for selecting particular. Limited
experience in conducting qualitative research can also be the reason. This chapter
is an attempt to make the issues clear to novice researchers so that they can design
and conduct ethnographic research following certain steps. It also explains how
narrative description is used in ethnographic research as the product of analysis with
maximum accuracy. The chapter aims to guide an ethnographic researcher to conduct
study in naturalistic setting and present the findings with cultural meaning of studied
phenomenon.

Keywords Ethnographic · Qualitative research · Graduate students

Introduction

It is said that ethnography was developed by Gerhard Friedrich Müller as a separate

discipline first in 1733 (Vermeulen, 2008) in Europe. In 1846, it started to spread
in the USA with support from The Smithsonian Institution. Later in 1879, the US
Bureau of Ethnology began to use this method for collecting data on Indians. German
researcher Frank Boas did much in the late 1800s to advance ethnography, and he and
his students were found dominating this field in the early 1900s in America (Ellen,
1984). In recent years, the importance of ethnography as a method of qualitative
research is gaining rapid recognition to reflect some limitations of the quantitative
method (Brewer, 2000). The aim of ethnographic research is to understand the cultural
meaning and interpretation of human experiences (Charmaz & Mitchell, 2001). It is
an art and science designed to observe and describe human behaviour and culture
in its natural setting (Fetterman, 1998). However, the experience of getting access

F. Ahmmed (B)
Department of Social Work, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 323
M. R. Islam et al. (eds.), Principles of Social Research Methodology,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5441-2_22
324 F. Ahmmed

to the natural environment varies irrespective of researchers and research subjects.

Therefore, it is required for a novice researcher to know the challenges, limitations,
and the process of conducting ethnographic research in order to collect, analyse, and
interpret the data more efficiently.
This chapter is a short description of the stages of ethnographic research, data
collection processes I adopted, and the challenges I faced and how overcame them
through the self-learning method. I had a theoretical understanding of conducting
ethnographic research before this field research. I thought that the work would be
very easy for me, and I will be able to conduct my research with maximum accuracy
without major challenges. Just after starting my work, I found that the way I thought
my task would not be so easy. I started thinking but found it difficult to get ways
before practical actions and was waiting to face the practical environment as per its
demand. During my study, I have applied some techniques in the management of field
environment that I did not learn from literature. I got confidence from a single word
‘flexibility’ which is mentioned in kinds of literature as a licence to apply self-skill
and technique in any phase of ethnographic research. Before field work, I thought
that I must gather objective-based data whatever the techniques are. In this process, I
was aware of the ethical obligations but was less aware of the techniques mentioned
in the literature. After completion of my study, I have compared my actions with the
existing literature and got an insight into how self-understanding can be effective in
gathering data for an ethnographic study.

Meaning of Ethnographic Research

The word ‘ethnography’ is derived from the Greek word ethnos, which means a
company, people or nation and graph, which means “writing”. The Webster Dictio-
nary defines ethnography as the study of the geographical distribution of races or
peoples and their relation to the environments in which they live. As one of the
qualitative methods, ethnographic research completely engages in the lives, culture,
or situation which is under investigation. Ethnography is the description of culture
(Spradley, 1979) using a ‘process of learning about people by learning from them’
(Roper & Shapira, 2000 cited in Higginbottom et al., 2013). Fetterman (2010) noted
that ethnographic research emphasizes on in-depth comprehension of the phenomena
which requires data collection from multiple sources including document analysis,
participant observation, interviews, and cultural immersion by a researcher. It is a
method that helps a researcher to explore the pattern of human experience through
participation and careful observation of life events and culture of those under study
(Angrosino, 2007). It facilitates a researcher to integrate him/herself to research
participants with unstructured and flexible data collection methods to explore the
meanings of human activity for the individuals themselves and the broader society
(Brewer, 2000: 20).
Scholars have mentioned certain characteristics of ethnography (Angrosino, 2007;
Atkinson & Hammersley, 1998, cited in Higginbottom et al., 2013; Hammersley,
22 Ethnographic Method 325

1998, cited in Brewer, 2000:19). Analysing all, we can understand the following
characteristics of ethnography:
• Ethnography is conducted in real-life setting to investigate a particular social
phenomenon.
• The process is inductive and holistic.
• The role played by researcher is both observer and a participant that requires a
long term commitment and engagement.
• Collected data using triangulation method may be unstructured and divergent
from pre-coded data.
• Conclusions and interpretations drawn from the comments of the participant
expose ethnography as dialogic.
• The nature of analysis is descriptive which is derived from small sample size, may
be from one case.

Techniques and Tools of Data Collection in Ethnographic

Research

Techniques

Multiple techniques of data collection are usually employed in ethnographic research

to get insightful personal and in-depth information from the research subjects.
However, most widely used ethnographic methods are interviewing, observation,
and document analysis (Angrosino, 2007; Kawulich, 2005).

Participant Observation

Angrosino (2007) described observation as the act of perceiving the activities and
interrelationships of people in the field setting. Participant observation is the process
of enabling researchers to learn about the activities of the people under study in
the natural setting through observing and participating in those activities Kawulich
(2005). Maintaining professional distance, the researcher participate in the lives of the
people under a study through participant observation (Fetterman, 1998). Participant
observation is most effective in studying non-verbal behaviour of individual and
groups.
Werner and Schoepfle (1987) (as cited in Kawlich, 2005) describe three types of
processes of participant observation:
• The first is descriptive observation, in which the researcher observe a situation
or event assuming that s/he knows nothing. This can provide both relevant and
326 F. Ahmmed

irrelevant data about the research subject and researcher has to pick the data those
are in line with the objectives of the study.
• The second type is focused observation which emphasizes observation with inter-
views of research participants. In this process, insights of the participant guide
the researcher’s decisions about the subject matter of observation.
• The third type of observation is selective observation, in which the researcher
focuses on different types of activities. The aim of this observation is to describe
the differences among activities those are being observed.
Bernard (1994) lists five reasons for including participant observation in ethno-
graphic research on cultural issues and other everyday life activities those are difficult
to document or explore through interview:
• It can facilitate to the involvement of researcher in sensitive activities to which
s/he generally would not be invited.
• People act in an artificial way if they are aware of being observed and participant
observation reduces the incidence of such “reactivity”.
• It helps the researcher to develop culturally relevant questions for other method
of investigation.
• It gives the researcher a better understanding of what is happening in the culture
and gives credibility to one’s interpretations of the observation.
• Participant observation also enables and give insights the researcher to prepare
data collection tools both for quantitative and qualitative research (as cited in
Kawlich, 2005).

Interviewing

Interviewing is the process of guiding a conversation to gather data (Angrosino,

2007). In ethnography, the contextual interview can help the researcher to get data
from the place where behaviour occurs. The researcher should be present at the
home or inside the community and an interview with the participant giving special
preference to the participant. If a researcher wants to know about the pattern of the
particular behaviour of community on a particular issue, s/he should be present there
and may ask the participants about this and it becomes easier both for interviewee and
researcher to share and get authentic information through face-to-face conversation.

Archival Research or Document Analysis

This is the analysis of available materials that provide an outline for research project,
formulation of research questions, and justification of study findings. If a researcher
wants to know about the traditional cultural practices of a particular community or
group on a certain issue, s/he should consult with relevant documents available and
22 Ethnographic Method 327

then possible compare them with existing practices that may be gathered through
observation and interviews. Stored existing materials should be selected carefully so
that their reliability is acknowledged by the group and /or community on which the
research is conducted.

Tools

Diary and daily notebook are maintained in documenting data gathered from the
participant observation. There should have checklists, and the researcher can use
them considering their sensitivity to the group or community which is under investi-
gation. If it does not affect the natural environment, the researcher can use it openly
or can keep the checklist in her/his mind and can observe things accordingly. The
interview requires an interview schedule with open-ended questions, and it should
include questions that cover all aspects of research. The camera can be used for docu-
menting the photographs and videos of events and behaviour. The researcher should
be careful in using any tools or instruments, and prior permission of participants and
community people should be earned.

When a Researcher Will Think to Using an Ethnographic

Method

Streubert and Carpenter (1999) mentioned the following reasons for choosing an
ethnographic study:
First, when the researchers are to document, understand, and describe alternative
realities from the participants’ points of view, which are salient to understanding the
range of events and behaviours of people in a particular culture.
Second, when a researcher is interested to build a substantive grounded theory,
the description and interpretation of participant observations produce a description
of the basic social-psychological process. Citing the reference of Charmaz and
Mitchell (2001), Aldiabat and Navenec (2011) mentioned that the ethnographic
method involves only the development of a thick description of how people in a
certain culture live their lives.
My study was qualitative due to the need for a deep understanding of indige-
nous culture on elderly care and support, which could only be discovered through
observations, in-depth interviews, and an examination of practical activities (Patton,
2002). I desired to conduct an in-depth study about the norms, values, and care
system for the elderly as it occurs normally in real life of the Khasi ethnic group,
and it could be possible through an ethnographic method of qualitative research
(Streubert & Carpenter, 1999). An ethnographic approach was identified as the most
appropriate method because it directs focus on the lived experience of the elderly
328 F. Ahmmed

people of selected indigenous groups, social and spiritual leaders, and their family
members who were identified as subjects of the study (Maanen, 1988). To under-
stand the ageing problem within a complex culture (Aldiabat and Navenec, 2011) of
the Khasi indigenous group, ethnographic method of qualitative research was also
suitable. There was nothing known about the ageing issue of the Khasi indigenous
group before this research. Ethnography is, in particular, suitable for investigating
minority groups in society such as the marginalized and the stigmatized peoples’
issues because such work can provide rich, thick, and detailed descriptions about
the unknown or the little known (Li, 2008) issues of those people. Only ethno-
graphic method allows researchers to observe what people do in “real-life” contexts,
not what they say what they do. Ethnographic participant observation can supply
detailed, authentic information unattainable by any other research method (Homan,
1980; Humphreys, 1970; Gans, 1999, cited in Li, 2008). To empower the very people
being studied, transforming the “public consciousness” and “common sense” about
the disadvantaged in society (Fine et al., 2003 cited in Lin 2008), ethnographic
research can be the best selection.

Major Steps Followed to Conduct a Successful Ethnographic

Study

I followed a set of stages in conducting my study which was guided by existing kinds
of literature on the ethnographic method.

Problem Formulation

This should be the first stage of research and in fact formulation of a problem or
selection of research, and the problem can provide a clear understanding of the
methodology to be selected by a researcher. In ethnographic research, it is important
to define the main focus of the research which can be possible by selecting a problem
about which a researcher intends to learn more. I had a personal interest in population
ageing. But the area of ageing is wider and conducting academic research within the
timeframe and financial arrangement needs specific problems which can be inves-
tigated accordingly. Reviewing existing literature, I found ethnic minority elderly
people who are mostly excluded by researchers. Due to my interest and proximity
to my workplace, I had a good relationship with some of the indigenous leaders.
Primarily, I discussed the needs and problems of their elderly and noticed some
exceptional indigenous care systems for their elderly. I found them important, unex-
plored, and felt that I should learn detail about them and selected indigenous support
systems and care for the elderly people in the Khasi community as my research topic.
22 Ethnographic Method 329

Selection of Sample

Most of the ethnographic research follows the purposive sampling technique (Higgin-
bottom et al., 2013). It is perceived that the participants selected through purposive
sampling have specific and sufficient knowledge or experience. Considering the
nature of my research problem. I followed the purposive sampling technique for
selecting both research sites and research participants. I selected village census as a
technique to find out elderly people age 60 years and above so that the participants
can represent sex, gender, and all socioeconomic background. All of the elderly
people living in the selected village were included as participants. As there was no
data on the elderly population in the selected ethnic minority community, the census
was considered the most efficient and effective tool to identify research participants.

Selection of Research Site and Gaining Access

To research ethnic minority communities, research site should be selected technically

so that it permits thorough investigation. As a member of the majority community,
deciding on the research site for this sensitive study was not so easy for me. I selected
the Khasi indigenous group who live in isolated and border territories of the north-
eastern part of Bangladesh. I had to face challenges to identify appropriate gateways
for entry into the community, participate, and observe their various permissible activ-
ities on which I required data for my research. I had a connection with a Khasi leader
who lived in an urban centre and requested him to support me in getting access to
their community. He refused to tell me that the people will not trust me and they will
not allow me to stay in their community as I am a member of the majority community.
I was frustrated and was feeling helpless. Not giving up my plan, I was trying to get
a connection for easy access to the community.
Meanwhile, one of my graduate students extended his support. He was a member
of the Garo ethnic community. The Garo is another ethnic minority community that
had a close relationship with the Khasi people. The father of my student was an
official of an international organization that directly worked for the wellbeing of the
Khasi people. Taking support from my student, I talked to his father and he was
agreed to support me. He suggested me select two remote Khasi villages purposively
where they run their education programme. Though the villages were located in
isolated remote areas without road communication, I agreed and requested him to
arrange everything for me so that I could stay in selected villages for three months.
Accordingly, he made contact with two village leaders. Both of the village leaders
denied it for the first time. My efforts continued, and after a few weeks, both of the
village leaders showed their interest to visit my home. I invited them with the support
of the father of my student. They came and we discussed my purpose. Making them
understand about research was not as easy as they were not formally educated and
unaware about research. I assured them that my presence will not affect their ways
330 F. Ahmmed

of living, I will not act or perform anything against their culture, and above all, I
will never disobey their restrictions. The village leaders were convinced and told
that they have no problem allowing me if their central community leaders permit.
They assured me that they will take the necessary steps for the approval of central
community leaders. Village leaders started negotiation quickly and central leaders
of the Khasi community started to investigate my profession and activities, and at
last, they permitted me to stay in their village. Although the total process took about
two months, I was existed and thankfully acknowledged their support. One date was
fixed and accompanying my Garo student as research assistant we started our journey
to the selected Khasi villages. The journey was not comfortable; we had to walk for
about seven kilometres on muddy channels to reach there. The water of the channel
was full of leeches, snakes, and water insects. A team of Khasi children guided us
during this exciting journey. After reaching the village gate, the mother of the village
head welcomed us and entertained us with Khasi betel leaf as part of their tradition.
This was the first time I had experienced having the hot Khasi betel leaf. This was
hard but enjoyed so that we can be accepted as their wishes. We were accepted nicely;
the village head arranged our housing and food, and the support was very warm.

Presenting Myself

It was critical and confusing for the first time. I made a plan to present myself as a
learner about the community people in the general and the indigenous elderly care
system in particular. Just after reaching the selected research site, residents were
curious and was asking different questions like who am I ?, why should I stay in
their villages?, what I will do?, etc. I gave answers to all of their questions without
hiding anything. I told them how I would be participating in their lives. I made
them clear that a major portion of my time in their community will be observing
elderly peoples’ roles and responsibilities in the family and community and how do
families care for their elderly. I had a preparation to be an ordinary person to the
villagers and accordingly my garbing was alike the community people. I did not
show any query for the first few days. I met people, travelled to their houses, and
introduced myself as simply as possibly. To get wider acceptance, the village head
accompanied me for the first two days and introduced me to his people. It helped me
substantially to get a trustworthy relationship and became easier to escape my status
as an intruder. Community people had their language which was unknown to me.
To overcome language barriers, the village leaders recruited a high school student
in their community who helped me to learn introductory/welcoming communicative
words. After a week, I found myself as a trustworthy and affectionate person to
the community people. Elderly people started sharing their everyday activities, their
needs and problems, and coping mechanisms usually they do the practice. Most of
the elderly people started to invite me to their homes, and I accepted all of their
invitations without hesitation. To find out the population of my study, I made a plan
22 Ethnographic Method 331

to conduct a village census. But it was not needed; all of the elderly people met me
spontaneously and informed me who are not able to move.

Data Collection

Ethnography allows multiple data collection techniques and in most cases use partic-
ipant observation, usually triangulated with interviews, with “key informants” in
particular. Such triangulation importantly helps to ensure the reliability of data. In
my research, I applied in-depth interviews with elderly people. I took key infor-
mant interviews with village leaders, caregivers of elderly people, and children of
the elderly who are living with their elderly parents with chronic illness. In addi-
tion to interviews, I applied informal conversations as a technique of data collection
throughout my data collection process which took almost six months. Participant
observation was also widely applied. Participant observation is used as the primary
method of fieldwork which involves “actively looking, improving memory, informal
interviewing, writing detailed field notes, and perhaps most importantly, patience”
(DeWalt & DeWalt, 2002). It enabled me to learn about the activities of elderly
people in their natural settings through observing and participating in those activi-
ties. I actively participated with elderly people in their natural settings. I have worked
with them in their farmland and participated in social and religious festivals and
observed how elderly people perform their role in the family and the society and
how community people and family members of elderly people respect and support
their elderly members. They provided me with ways to check for non-verbal expres-
sion of feelings including participants’ way of interaction and time spent on various
activities that were not possible to get through interviewing in my research.
While participant observation helped me to reveal the world of Khasi elderly
people in naturalistic community settings, in-depth interviewing exposed the mean-
ings of the indigenous elderly care system and sociocultural values regarding
ageing by attending to elderly peoples’ perspectives and interpretations (Li, 2008).
Collecting data from my participants was not easy going always. After observing
community and elderly people, I found that the interview schedule with open-ended
questions is not a suitable tool. The same was for any formal tools like a checklist. On
the first date of my data collection, I found that participants, as well as community
people, are not comfortable once I try to open any tool like interview schedule and
checklist. They started to ask me curiously what I should write and what I would do
with this. My answers were not satisfactory to them, and I found that the participants
and community people are feeling uneasy interacting with me. Then, I had to take a
different strategy, leave all formal instruments, and go throw all of the questions and
issues that need to be learnt from my participants. I started to interact with them very
informally and not impose control in the discussion, it was in line with the desire
of the participants. I simply raised the issue and participants discussed it in her/his
ways, and I never stopped them. Sometimes, more than one participant attended in
discussion and I also welcomed them. Someday, they invited me to their home, and
332 F. Ahmmed

somedays, I visited their home, workplace, and gathering place. One grocery shop
was in between the two villages where elderly people used to gather for gossiping and
I was a regular listener of that gossiping and I got a lot of data from each gossiping
session. Once I worked with them in their firm lands, I was able to discuss research
questions informally and discussion took place warmly. I have attended their social
festivals and observed how elderly people can participate in multiple roles.

Gathering and Recording Information

I have discussed why it was difficult for me to collect and record data at the same
time. I could not carry any diary or notebooks or any recording tools before the
participants to avoid their confusion. I did not take field notes when I was involved in
the field with my participants. Though I took this strategy for gaining trust and broader
acceptance of participants, it helped me to interact with participants and observe
without interference. After fieldwork, I started to record at night and it was my daily
routine and strategy to document whatever I got in the field. This running description
technique is proposed by Singleton and Straits (2005). This quick regular action was
for minimizing recall problems. My research assistant used to accompany me and
after recording data I used to share with him and he used to support me if I missed any
information to record. Raising the same issue on the next date for more clarification
was a regular practice for avoiding confusion and more clarification about the issue
discussed by the participants. As I had the same discussion and observation with
different people, some issues I forgot to document last night could recall in the field
and wrote them just after getting back from the field. After recording data, my habit
was to read and re-read it and try to gain self-satisfaction. Once I was dissatisfied,
used to find out personal limitations, own biases and visited participants on several
occasions to justify whether I have documented data subjectively or objectively.

Data Analysis and Interpretation

The researcher’s awareness of multiple ways of analysing qualitative data is most

important. The ethnographer is called a human instrument (Fetterman, 2010), and
thus, an ethnographer is to eliminate all personal biases and preconceptions before
entering the study domain—from data collection to analysis. In the data analysis
phase, special emphasis is given to the field notes and records prepared during field-
work. The researcher’s observations are also presented. The qualitative data anal-
ysis process comprises multiple phases, such as examining, cleaning, organizing,
reducing, exploring, describing, explaining, displaying, interrogating, categorizing,
pattern finding, transforming, consolidating, comparing, integrating, synthesizing,
and interpreting data. I followed all of the stages mentioned. I collected rich data
from a relatively small sample which helped me to get a clear insight into my research
22 Ethnographic Method 333

problem. Field notes were collected consciously which had a concrete effect on the
interpretation of research findings (Walls, 2011). I had no desire to generalize the
findings rather my analysis focused on searching inner meanings of issues that were
under my investigation. I have observed the patterns of data and then identified cate-
gories and themes. I also developed typologies of data and based on the relationships
of different social and cultural issues raised by the participants were established
through explanations. Finally, interpretations depicted the meaning and nature of the
indigenous care system, their sustainability, and the possibility of its replication into
the mainstream community of Bangladesh where indigenous and traditional support
systems of the elderly people are decreasing.

Advantages and Challenges Faced by a Researcher

Advantages

A researcher can select a particular method or multiple methods for her/his research
project from some methodologies. However, the suitability of each method should
be examined first for choosing a method for the specific study. The ethnographic
method of qualitative research has certain advantages which can allow a researcher
to select this method for gathering detailed information from a naturalistic environ-
ment. Analysing Wolcott (1999) provided list, Sangasubana (2011) mentioned the
advantages of ethnographic research, some of which are as follows:
• Appropriate for conducting the study by a researcher alone.
• Suitable for study on sensitive issues.
• Applicable to study marginalized groups of people or hard to reach community
which in turn may empower the studied group or community.
• Appropriate for gathering data on insider’s interpretation of reality.
• Facilitates the researcher to observe and document the variations over time.
• Possibility of carrying out research at any place.
• Creates opportunity for a researcher to work without considering the participants
as objects.
• Provides comprehensive findings for further research and writing.
• Makes the researcher’s journey to data collection exploratory and thought
provoking.
• Eases the research with less expensive tools or equipment.
• Allows the researcher’s access to the exclusive domain with full responsibility
which eventually develops his/her skills to discover the facts of chosen setting
and learn others culture.
• Allows a researcher to gather data on verbal and non-verbal behaviours in a
naturalistic setting.
334 F. Ahmmed

Limitations and Challenges

Despite having various advantages in conducting ethnographic research, some limi-

tations are explained by scholars. The advocates of natural science criticized that
ethnography is below the standards of science from the point of view of measure-
ment and generalization. Fabian (1983) criticizes ethnography, as a discipline, for
its failure to pinpoint cultures in time. Neuman (2003) identified three issues: reac-
tivity, reliability, and validity as challenges in conducting ethnographic research. A
researcher should be careful so that it can be overcome. In ethnographic research, all
of the challenges are expected to be minimized by the researcher herself/himself.
Naturally, the community or group which is under investigation may behave differ-
ently in the presence of researcher because they know that they are in a study (Sanga-
subana, 2011). It is easy to minimize this reactivity, and the author has described
how he overcame this challenge during data collection familiarizing himself with his
participants.
In ethnographic research, reliability and validity issue is frequently questioned as
the process depends upon the quality (insight, consciousness, questions and observing
the behaviours and events from different viewpoints and outlooks (Neuman, 2003) of
the researcher alone. To ensure reliability, the researcher should know how to gather
consistent, and credible data both internally and externally (Neuman, 2003). In the
data collection stage of this chapter, the author has mentioned how he recorded the
behaviour of elderly people consistently in different contexts of their lives. He also
mentioned how data gathered from the elderly people were cross-checked and verified
gathering data from community leaders, caregivers, and children of elderly people.
These were for ensuring the consistency of data. Sangasubana (2011) emphasizes
the credibility assessment of the sources of data due to researchers’ reliance on what
others express.
Validity can also be ensured by the ethnographic researcher by gathering and
analysing data and also representing the lives and culture under the study Neuman
(2003). It is described earlier that being a non-member of the community, how the
author was capable of performing as an insider of the community. This helped him to
interact with elderly people effectively and gather data from a naturalistic environ-
ment. The result and conclusions were articulated based on the practical observation
and field notes those were preserved and recorded with maximum accuracy.
In addition, ethnographic research is labour intensive and time-consuming. It
takes a long to get access to the community, build confidence in the community,
and observe the natural setting for understanding colure. Sometimes, it becomes
difficult to participate and observe at the same time and information might be missing
and again more time needs to cross-check the field data. Observer effect is another
limitation through which researcher face difficulty during data collection as the group
or community people become aware of the researchers’ observation upon them.
Personal biases due to massive participation may also hamper the validity of data. It
becomes difficult to follow structured observation in controlled settings which may
22 Ethnographic Method 335

hamper the objectivity of the study. All of these limitations can be minimized by the
capability of the researcher.

Conclusions

Though conceptual and methodological confusions are raised by a section of scholars

and an ethnographic researcher may experience personal, cultural, and method-
ological challenges; ethnographic research has meaningful and useful application
in learning people and societies who are not known or slightly known by the other
people of a broader society. Problems of validity and relevance in ethnography are
explained by Hammersley (1992); however, the ethnographic researcher can present
the narrative of the cultural connotation of the phenomenon through investigation on
both verbal and non-verbal behaviours in naturalistic settings which are not possible
by a quantitative researcher. It allows a researcher to get an insight into reality Ethno-
graphic research can be conducted by a single researcher and that is why it may be
less expensive, easily manageable, and interesting but adventurous. Increased self-
awareness and skills of the ethnographic researcher can produce valid and reliable
knowledge on the culture, society of a marginalized group of people which also can
create a base for further investigation on the same issue.

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