Baszanger and Dodier "Ethnography: relating part to whole"

Baszanger and Dodier (2004) "Ethnography: relating the part to the whole" in Silverman (edit.)Qualitative Research - theory, method and practice 2nd Edition. London: SAGE. 9-34

Ethnographic studies must satisfy 3 requirements simultaneously:

• The need for an empirical approach - phenomena needs to be empirically observed and cannot be deduced (introspection cannot deliver results needed)
• The need to remain open to elements that cannot be codified at the time of study - disponible; unexpected phenomena can come to light; subjects can behave endogenously, not influenced by study arrangements; openness conflicts with need to have a method (a plan), but this duality is an implicit part of fieldwork
• The need to ground phenomena observed in the field - must connect what is observed with a backdrop; different observation sequences must be integrated into global referential framework.

Ethnography can be divided into three broad categories:

Integrative:

• Observation leads to the discovery of a cultural whole or mongraphic totalisation.
• Fieldwork reflections are created into an integrated vision of the world
• Gaining access to new points of view involves questioning and being made over/transformed (disponibility needed)
• Understanding only occurs after constant process of reciprocation between observer and phenomenon
• This method is flawed because it assumes that people share elements of a collective culture - is it inconsistent to assume this and maintain the openness mentioned above
• Geertz is key integrative ethnographer

Narrative:

• The process of totalisation (the write up) is seen as highly significant in all ethnography and normally as a solitary act
• The act of writing here is seen as just as important as the observation: the personal nature of account is given emphasis
• The final text is seen as a history of the observers interaction with the phenomena.
• But this approach must avoid the account being one persons trajectory though a series of events
• See Malinowsk A diary in the stricktest sense of the word and Clifford Writing Culutre

Combinative:

• This approach focus on culture as a common fund of actionable operations
• The ethnographer gradually enriches his understanding by building a catalogue of examples of actions that unite a group

The three approaches appear to be viewing culture in different ways:

• a whole to be discovered
• a relationship between an individual and a group
• an inventory of actions that a group uses

The idea is to distinguish between those who do belong and those who do not, or between those in the narrative and those not, or between those who utilise certain actions and those who do not.

I think its legitimate to cherry pick features of each approach so long as it is made entirely clear that the methodology is not pure in this sense.

The narrative one will be relevant to me as I will be a participant in what I observe. The literature on participant observation needs to be investigated, and its relationship to the requirements of ethnography need to be explained.

The idea of this research being reciprocal, where my opinions and actions help to form the picture of the phenomena observed, is important and cannot be ignored.

Endogenous: grows from within. This corresponds to the idea of disponibility. Both are required as states of mind when approaching an ethnographic study: so the observer can be made over, and does not commit to theories without first observing how the phenomena to be observed behave and interact.