[Air-l] re: ethnography

[Slater,D]

Have to say that I simply do not recognize Danny's 'model' (or model number 1). Or, rather, I recognise it as a purely bad model which is in practice almost as impossible as a purely good one. 

Questions about things like ICTs and poverty are not framed within a purely academic context (or you can only do this by ignoring just about everything that is going on around you). My current questions in Ghana (and just tell me to shut up about my own research when you get sick of it - it's just easier for me to respond concretely) are framed by an incredible mix of discourses(which are in constant dialogue with each other) including governmental, NGO, academic, business, activists, etc, etc. And quite frankly, 'the question' is pretty broad, broad enough to contain and respond to all the themes and ideas that seem worth pursuing, which changes over time and in response to the project itself. Major consituencies in Ghana are in constant debate over ICTs and development - eg, a daily subject is, can Ghana skip industrialization and move straight from agricultural economy to information economy. I've had these conversations in slum households. For all kinds of reasons, the questions being asked here are not so very different from the ones being asked in my seminars back home (or in my own living room). When I stress ethnography as dialogue (including disagreement) that's partly what I mean - we are in some respects living very much in the same world, with similar issues, though we might (sometimes) put them rather differently.

I don't know any ethnographer who looks at people as 'others' who have answers to 'our' questions. Partly because the point is to find out what 'their' questions are; partly because it is not usual to put ethnography into a Q/A format. The metaphor is more pictorial - what picture is emerging as to what is going on. We've spent much of the last two weeks here trying to figure out the best ways to have conversations about household finances. This doesn't mean finding the right button to press to release the information I want. It means learning about how people calculate, categorize, worry, aspire, plan, etc. You don't find 'answers'; you learn to draw. The question of representation starts at the very beginning.

As to stage 3, yes I bloody well better take responsibility for how I present that picture, and we all agree that I have huge power to paint as I like and sign my name to it. I'm tempted to say firstly that at least unlike other methods it is *my* name at the bottom; I can't pretend, as in other approaches, that my picture is the result of an objective technical process (I would love to see some of the surveys I've been involved in presented as ethnographies are, with all the fuck-ups, guess work, bodges, etc, all itemised). But because an ethnography is presented that way, it is saying - 'dispute me', challenge me, tell a different story. As to how that story relates to the people I am representing: dunno. I predict that some Ghanaian academics will disagree and others will find it useful; that some activists will agree and others disagree, on incredibly varied grounds. That it will be irrelevant or incomprehensible to most of those people I did my primary research with, but that that is not the only point; that within my own funding agency some the report will be either ignored or slammed or championed as a symbol of new ways of knowing, etc. etc. 

I'm not saying anything new am I? Pretty obvious: I'll write a lot of different things for very different audiences with lots of different upshots.

Perhaps a more interesting answer is that in my last project, with UNESCO, Jo Tacchi and I developed an approach called 'ethnographic action research' (you have to have a brand in development work these days) which involved integrating research within the project development of the nine projects in South Asia we were working with. This incorporated a basic toolkit of methods framed in a generally ethnographic way. And implemented through researchers who had no ethnographic background and were simultaneously development workers. We supported them through training workshops and field visits, as well as online dialogues (website, chat, listserve). Very mixed results, but basically: 1. ethnnography made complete sense to people, and was most effective in valorizing people's knowledge and their ways of knowing - instead of throwing out what they knew through experiences because it was not 'objective' or survey based, ethnography helped them structure their knowledge and methods - a conversation with a computer user, when written up as fieldnotes and brought within some frame of analysis, was no longer just a conversation or experience, it was part of a knowledge project that was in tune with developing their development project.

2. Yes, getting the researchers involved in the analysis of all this material is difficult and often feels to them remote from the practicalities of project development, but at least there is a structure to talk about what conclusions seem to make sense, and tryin gout different languages for the analysis. 

3. To use the dreaded term 'capacity building', as the project comes to a finish we are leaving behind a group of trained and experienced researchers into ICTs and poverty who can do whatever they want with these experiences and ideas. Some want to move into postgraduate work, some into more develo0pment work, etc, etc. They will develop their ideas and approaches in whatever way they think is appropriate.

Final point - I get worried about the idea of thinking of people as either owning or excluded from knowledge or 'knowledge infrastructures', as you put it below. It's a bit like older thinking about the digital divide, haves or have nots. Without eliding power issues, isn't it dangerous to replicate these black and white metaphors (I use the racial language advisedly) because they simply replicate the absolutes of oppressors and victims, masters and slaves, powerful and powerless. I have only to walk down the street here to be fully aware of poverty and lack of power. But I have only to get into conversations on any of these streets to learn about the knowledge infrastructures and knowledge strategies that people are using and building on. The job is to see how to help that building, not to convince people that they are helpless victims and that we feel the proper guilt - that is simply disempowering.


don



_______________________________________________

Don Slater
Reader in Sociology, London School of Economics

Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE
Tel: +44 (020) 7849 4653
Fax: +44 (020) 7955 7405

 http://homepages.gold.ac.uk/slater

______________________________________________



-----Original Message-----
From: Danny Butt [mailto:db at dannybutt.net] 
Sent: 18 February 2004 12:04
To: aoir.org
Subject: [Air-l] re: ethnography


Thanks all for the comments... against my better judgement I'll clarify some
points:

I'm not anti-ethnography. Don posted, with understandable impatience, a "rant" which essentially said "stop working yourself up over this or that method or conceptual framework for new media and find out what happens and start there", which is an excellent point and one pretty well rehearsed since cultural studies in old media theory. Rhiannon raised some excellent issues around the position of researchers in that framework, and Don once again responded with some useful commentary, but one I didn't feel paid much attention to a whole lot of dialogue happening (among First nations peoples in particular, who have a lot of experience as ethnographic subjects) which questions the power dynamic in this kind of research.

I'm not saying that Don isn't aware of these issues, and as he notes, the real experience of "being there" raises all sorts of questions that can't be foreclosed "in theory". But as a methodological practice I tend to notice what we say when we're not being entirely "considered", as this says a lot about our overall approach to being in situations (something ethnographers know well). [And as Mary suggests, my own "improving the world" quote, while not serious, also raises interesting discussions around my positioning :7].

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)

2) The answer is held by others, who will surrender it (or something like it, but altered by my "experience") under observation

3) I will, more or less depending on my positioning, take responsibility for this answer's circulation in an environment where it will be "meaningful" but not controlled by those who held the answer.

Who controls what's important here? I don't see any value in contrasting the "experience" of having a gun to your head in a particular situation where you might not have been in control, to the very different temporality of control which comes from "deciding" to go somewhere for an "ethnographic encounter". The ethnographer can, after all, always go home from the research situation. All I'm asking for from those privileging ethnography as a research method is some sensible dialogue around those issues, and being honest about what we want.

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

2) A researcher is engaged by those people as a way of gaining access to particular forms of knowledge, money, and representation that might address these issues

3) Reporting on the "results" of this quest for knowledge, money, and representation goes back to the people (but there may also, for "ethical or pragmatic reasons" be a report given to the institutions which are the home of the researcher).

I am not saying that all the cross-cultural interaction and research I'm associated with follows the second model (and, to be honest, I couldn't handle it if it was). But it seems to me that this way of conceiving of "ethnography" is worthy of consideration, and it might also helpfully muddy the methodological waters a little to disrupt the "Read chapter 6 to discover the 'ethnography' method which might be appropriate for *your* project" line, which is altogether too routine in our academic systems.

So to Jon's suggestion that I "need to suggest an alternative research strategy without these problems" , I would say: the desire for no problems is the problem.

[Or, perhaps, "Hey, ditch that problematic old ethnography, and sign-up for a one-year license of the DannyButt research method, pre-approved for your convenience by 756 global NGOs representing severely disadvantaged groups, and through our affiliate network covering 96% of groups worldwide claiming potential damage through research. Speed up those tiresome ethics committees, and get to the *real research* faster!"]

As Haraway puts it, ethnography should not be seen as a "method" to be "applied" but a way of being radically open to the forces structuring a situation. My perception  - which is significantly influenced by ongoing conversations with those not defining research situations - is that research situations are generally dominated by our basic assumptions as researchers, and the only way of really dealing with this is to be as clear as possible about what these assumptions are (which is to say, if you're confident about the benefits of your research for your subjects, and your immunity from the historical forces that shaped your methods, you probably need to spend some more time in the library before heading out).

I don't know if anyone cares about this stuff and I've got that feeling like I misread the dress code for the party, so I'll finish up there.

Big thanks to Mary for the Visweswaran reference which I didn't know about!

x.d

-- 
http://www.dannybutt.net

------ Forwarded Message
From: Ed Lamoureux <ell at hilltop.bradley.edu>

Strikes me that the key issue/question here is about what one is studying. If one is studying the meanings-in-use-for-subjects,

------ Forwarded Message
From: Mary Bryson <mary.bryson at ubc.ca>

Dunno about the goal of "improving the world". I very much appreciate the ongoing discussion about ethnography and media studies. I have found Kamala

------ End of Forwarded Message

------ Forwarded Message
From: Maximilian Forte <mcforte at kacike.org>
Reply-To: air-l at aoir.org
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 21:58:07 -0400
To: air-l at aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-l] Re: ethnography

(A) there is nothing inherently "colonial" about the practice of ethnography. How ethnography is done, by which agents, in which historical contexts, and for what purposes is what matters. I think we risk confusing the histortical origins of anthropology with field methods.

(B) There is no law, that I know of, that will convince me that unintended consequences are more likely than intended ones. What is the basis for the assertion?

Finally, the issue of power differentials has been hammered to death and I was never really impressed by the lack of realism of these arguments. I have conducted research with people who could buy and sell me at a whim, other who could have snuffed me out at the snap of the fingers, and  others that had over three decades of experience in dealing with the media, politicians, ministries, or who were themselves political leaders. I was some kid getting an "anthro" degree. There are power differentials, sure, but not necessarily in the single direction you suggest.
------ End of Forwarded Message

------ Forwarded Message
From: Jonathan Marshall <Jonathan.Marshall at uts.edu.au>
Reply-To: air-l at aoir.org
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 13:09:42 +1100
To: air-l at aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-l] Re: ethnography

Fair enough :)  but ethnography tends to bring you face
to face with these issues in a way in which other techniques, to my knowledge do not.

It is all very well to argue ethnography is not perfect, and
i certainly agree, it can't be - this is what doing ethnography has 'taught' us - but perhaps you need to suggest an alternative research strategy which does not have these problems.

------ End of Forwarded Message


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