Conduct and write up a short ethnographic study

IMPORTANT: Read this whole exercise before starting the Assignment.

Task: I have identified several 1 to 3 minute videos of people engaged in some activity.  View all and pick one with which you are NOT familiar. Assignment: try to understand what the people are doing and why they choose to do it.

Goal: To understand ethnographic research.

Paper requirements are in red below

• Paper requirement: - 1,200 words or less NOT counting citations/references
• Paper requirement: Read and cite at least two of these syllabus readings on ethnographic research. Penalty of 10% of paper grade for citing less than 2 of these readings.
  • Geertz, C. 1973. Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture. The interpretation of cultures: selected essays: 6-9. New York: Basic Books.
  • Richard Fenno. 1978. Homestyle: House Members in Their Districts, Little, Brown and Co., "Introduction," pp. xi-xv (5 pages).
  • Tilly, C. 2006. Afterword: Political Ethnography as Art and Science. Qualitative Sociology 29(3): 409-412.
  • Fota, A. 2019. What's Wrong With This Diorama? You Can Read All About It. New York Times. 20 March 2019 (accessed: 20 March 2019).
  • Freeman, R. 2008. How to 'do' history, or the ten 'C's of historical understanding.
  • Palmer, D. 2014. Explainer: What is post-modernism? The Conversation. 2 January 2014 (accessed: 23 March 2019).
  • Tannenwald, N. 1999. The nuclear taboo: the United States and the normative basis of nuclear non-use. International Organization 53(3): 433-468. [Note how Tannenwald interprets what is NOT happening.]
  • Eriksson, P. and A. Kovalainen. 2008. Chapter 12: Ethnographic Research. Introducing Qualitative Methods: Qualitative methods in business research, edited by P. Eriksson and A. Kovalainen: 138-153. London: SAGE Publications.
  • Sangasubana, N. 2011. How to Conduct Ethnographic Research. The Qualitative Report 16(2): 567-573.
• View ALL these videos briefly. Select the ONE that you know NOTHING (or the least) about.
  • NONE of these has sound (audio was not recorded).
  • Video link 1
  • Video link 2
  • Video link 3
  • Video link 4
  • Video link 5
• Do NOT do ANY searching to determine what is actually going on. This assignment only works if the video is your ONLY source of information. The assignment is to act like an ethnographer, trying to understand why people behave as they do by interpreting how they behave. I will identify the sources AFTER the assignment is due.
• Avoid assumptions. Do NOT try to prove some theory. Ethnographers come to their research questions and their explanations as they observe, not beforehand.
• Observe: Watch your selected video several times. Take detailed notes on what you observe. Assume you do NOT know why these people are doing what they are but, instead, describe what they are doing and consider all possible explanations. Write down whichever things you observe, such as:
  • What “type” of people are interacting (e.g., do they appear to be from one social group or different social groups)
  • How people are dressed (e.g., differences across genders or groups)
  • Are all people engaged or are some involved and some observers
  • Other concrete details of behavior
  • Paper requirement: Describe the "context" of what is happening (see rubric below for details).
    
  • Paper requirement: Describe four (4) major things you observe that "didn't make sense" to you when you first watched the video.
    
• Paper requirement: Make an interpretive argument: What do these behaviors mean for the people involved. Make a thesis statement about “what the people were doing”, in the sense of how they would have made sense of their behavior given the social context. Select observations that best support your explanation. Help your reader see that your interpretation captures something that is NOT obvious but IS visible to a good observer.
• NOTE: In ethnographic research, conducting research ethically requires: protecting people's privacy, not observing without people's consent, stopping observing if people are uncomfortable, etc. When using video, ensure your writing shows respect for the people you are observing on video and the activities they are engaged in, even if you cannot understand it.  Do a FINAL read-thru of your paper and ensure you avoid bias -- do not describe these behaviors as "weird," "strange," or otherwise judge the people involved.
  

Citations: If you need a format for citations (you can used your preferred option if you have one) is available HERE.