GS202 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Focus Group, Participant Observation, Ethnography
Document Summary
Individuals with whom you spent a lot of time interviewing and/pr observing. Ability to provide the researcher with interpretations of particular situations. Can involve encouraging the informant to become an ethnographer too. Have to be careful who you select and whether this will generate hostilities. Writing field notes is not just writing down facts about what happened . Field notes are inscription of social life and social discourse. It involves a process of transformation and selection. You are presenting and framing objects in particular ways. What the researcher finds out is inherently connected with how she/he finds it out. Result= the methods should be part of the written field notes. Putting as much details as possible will help understand the situation. Do no use evaluative adjectives and verbs (assertively, struts and shows off) Do not let a label to stand for description. It immerses the student/scholar in people"s lives and enables the development of a relationship.
