[Air-l] further answer to danny

[Ed Lamoureux]

Appears to me that Danny locates the nature of his problem in his last 
post. With all due respect, I don't believe that Danny and 
ethnographers share basic assumptions:

On Feb 18, 2004, at 6:03 AM, Danny Butt wrote:

> So I just don't see the point of denying (as I feel Maximillian is) or
> eliding (as I feel Don was) the power dynamic intrinsic in ethnographic
> research (and other social research as Ed suggested). The model is:
>
> 1) There's a question, framed in an academic context, which I as a
> researcher don't have the answer to (the answer is therefore exotic)
>
> The point I'm pressing becomes more obvious if I outline another way of
> conceiving of cross-cultural research:
>
> 1) There are issues identified by people who are excluded from 
> knowledge
> infrastructures (and associated academic salaries) such as Universities
>

When I was trained in qualitative methods, an absolute commandment was 
that relevant questions about meaning-in-use emerge from the research 
as part and parcel of interaction with the subject cohort. I would 
agree with Danny's assessment that when researchers bring in 
pre-ordained constructs, qualitative work does not develop sensitive 
findings.

However, I would strongly disagree in Danny's claim that this is the 
way (good) ethnography proceeds. Quite the opposite: it is the sort of 
thing that scientific qualitative work is supposed to guard against. 
The claim Danny makes against ethnography, from my view as evidenced by 
his characterization of it, is false.

Edward Lee Lamoureux, Ph. D.
Director, Multimedia Program and New Media Center
Associate Professor, Speech Communication
1501 W. Bradley
Bradley University
Peoria IL  61625
309-677-2378