Contextualising ethnography
It is important for the researcher considering using ethnography to understand the
various types of investigation that may potentially form the framework for analysis.
Ethnography can be any full or partial description of a group (ethno – folk, graphy –
description), as a means of identifying common threads, whether these be religion,
social relationships or management style. Ethnographies may be cross sectional such
as Goffman’s (1961) study of asylums which looked at a cross section of “total”
institutions (Fine and Martin, 1990), or ethnohistorical, which describe the cultural
reality of the present as the historical result of events in the past. They may be
classified on the basis of spatial or geographic dimensions, by language, by theory, or
in any number of diverse ways; there are few limitations to the cultural contexts to
which it can be applied (Boyle, 1994).own distinct procedures for collecting data, but it is also highly concerned with the
cultural context. The next part of this paper attempts to contextualise ethnography
before examining the primary techniques associated with ethnographic research.