EPSY 363 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Ethnography, Thick Description
25 Apr 2020
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Document Summary
Ethnography describes and interprets a culture or cultural group. Good ethnographic research takes a holistic approach, combines observation, documents/discourse, and interviews. Actors: physical appearance and dress, use of language, body language and non-verbals, individual actions performed and group activities in which they engage. Dialogues and informal conversations that take place. Feelings and emotions that are felt and expressed. Overt is preferred and is more ethical. Observer effect: the presence of the observer changes what happens within a setting and what actors do or don"t do. Imagine that in observing a culture, you sat in at a family dinner. Thick description: documenting the cultural context and meaning that people place on actions, words, things, etc. Provide enough context so that a person outside the culture can make meaning of the behavior (geertz). Descriptive field notes: describe in detail settings, actors, events, and activities, and reproduce the actual language, dialect, and idiosyncratic usage of the actors.
