Doing Ethnography. Amanda Coffey

and detailed engagement with a setting, community or group of social actors, and is predicated on an understanding that we learn ‘about’ by being ‘with/in’. Thus, it follows, that an important aspect of an ethnographic project is the ‘getting on with it’ – involvement in the setting quickly and in ways that promote engagement and understanding. This might include observing, listening, asking questions, and indeed gathering any and all information you can lay your hands on – including documents, photographs and other materials from and about a setting. Such an immediate approach to ethnographic fieldwork is, to an extent at least, encouraged and supported by and through the theoretical foundations on which ethnographic research sits – with a focus on an inductive approach to theory building; generating ideas and analyses ‘bottom up’, from the ground and with an open mind. How better to pursue this than by moving forward quickly with fieldwork? And there is merit in such a timely approach, certainly with not delaying early data collection unnecessarily in favour of lengthy desk-based preparation time. Ethnographic research is often best served by early engagement and dialogue with the field of study. However, it is a mistake to think that there is an absence of preparedness or research design in ethnography. Like in all social scientific research, in ethnographic study there are choices to be made, issues of research design (Flick, 2018a) to address and to decide upon with thoughtfulness and care. While it is important not to predetermine the outcomes or experiences of fieldwork, or be overly prescriptive (we should always be prepared to be surprised and to be flexible in our approach), preparedness is still key to a successful ethnographic project.

      There are a number of aspects of ethnographic research design that require careful consideration and at least a degree of planning. These include defining an initial research ‘problem’, question or topic for exploration and investigation, and identifying data collection and analytical strategies for the ways in which those ideas will be taken forward, developed and refined. The research setting and/or participants must also be identified, and this in itself might well involve preliminary research and fieldwork. There are real choices for the ethnographer in relation to generating data, managing data and undertaking analyses; not least because ethnography speaks to and includes a variety of approaches. Equally there are a range of ways in which ethnographic research can be written about, represented and reported. Ethnographic research, with its repertoire of methods, is also particularly well suited to be used in combination with other complementary approaches, thus prompting further issues for thoughtful research design. If and when ethnography is used in combination, good design is required to ensure that the final project benefits from the sum of the parts.

      Identifying suitable topics and problems

      Ethnography is best suited to topics of exploration and discovery, rather than to questions of causality or narrow policy evaluation. Ethnographic research provides mechanisms for gaining understanding or exploring meaning as opposed to testing variables or identifying causes. Thus topics and questions that are suitable for ethnographic treatment are those which address process and practice – for example, how do things happen in the ways that they do? How are everyday activities organized? How do people in settings perceive and understand their daily work and lives? Questions such as these might be useful starting points for helping to identify a topic for exploration. Such questions are concerned with an intellectual curiosity for wanting to gain layered understandings of settings, communities, groups and cultures. They might also be accompanied by questions about or concerns with what matters within such settings – for example, what do people regard as important to them in their daily lives or work? What strategies are employed by people in order to get through or make sense of their experiences? What categories and devices are used by people to order, make sense of and account for actions and events? There is a long and distinguished tradition of institutional ethnography – of ethnographies of organizations for which such questions are particularly well suited. But ethnographic research does not need to be restricted to institutional settings, important and interesting though they are or might be. So alongside topics and questions which might enable detailed explorations of institutions such as schools, hospitals, business settings and prisons, the same curiosity in relation to ‘what’ and ‘how’ can be equally applicable to taxi drivers, family life, competitive swimmers, youth gangs or welfare activists. A key point here is that ethnographic research is an appropriate choice where questions focus on exploration and discovery, as well as on understanding settings from the perspectives of those who inhabit such spaces. Or to turn that around, ethnographic research can in and of itself be used to identify and define a research ‘problem’; that is, a focus of further exploration to aid understanding and sense making. Ethnographic research is also well suited to understanding and documenting process. This recognizes that social settings are dynamic and shifting spaces, with fluid boundaries and multiple perspectives that are brought to bear. There is a perception that ethnography is best suited to studying ‘naturally occurring’ settings, events and happenings – that are simply ‘there’ to be observed and understood. It is true that ethnography does not set out to ‘create’ artificial laboratory conditions through which to understand lives and cultures; however, there is a recognition that daily lives and settings are not in themselves particularly ‘naturally occurring’, but rather shaped and maintained through social and cultural boundaries and interactions.

      Research questions help to formulate a structure through which we can seek to make sense of processes, practices, organizations, settings and lives in ethnographic research. In a spirit of discovery such questions should be open rather than closed, attendant to the possibilities rather than concerned with narrow and definitive answers. Ethnographic research does not and should not start with a lack of ideas or questions; we do not enter a setting with an empty mind, but rather an open mind. Openness in ethnographic research gives permission for refinement, for refreshing the topics to be examined and the problems to be explored. A ‘foreshadowed problem’, after Malinowski (1922) is a helpful concept here. A foreshadowed problem is not a problem in the sense of a problem to be resolved or solved. Rather it is a way of describing a ‘research problem’ – a topic to be explored or investigated or better understood. Foreshadowed problems can be identified through a range of sources – for example, from a personal interest in a setting or phenomenon, from theoretical work or comparative projects, from something that just appears interesting or unusual or unexplained, or from a chance encounter or opportune experience. Foreshadowed problems help us to both focus and to develop a set of open, reflective areas for initial exploration – important in designing an ethnographic project. Having a focus, with open and reflexive lines of inquiry to guide initial observation, listening and questioning will lead to a purposive and meaningful project. Foreshadowed problems can be used to develop guiding questions for the ethnographer to explore; they must also be identified in such a way that leaves open the possibility of surprise and of encountering the unexpected.

      Fields of study and developing research questions

      All research starts with a problem or an issue to be explored and investigated. While ethnographic research draws on an understanding of developing ideas and theory through the systematic collection and analysis of data, it is still possible and indeed desirable to develop the problem a little before beginning the research proper. This can be done through engagement with existing data on or knowledge about the setting or comparable settings, exploring relevant or related literatures for concepts and phenomena that might be useful entrées into the setting, or starting from ‘known facts’ or ‘assumed understandings’ about a setting or phenomenon in order to generate ‘how’ and ‘what’ questions. Foreshadowing problems, issues or questions for exploration can provide the researcher with a practical way into a setting, from which ideas about how to explore and describe the setting might flow.

      In ethnographic research it is usual to refer to the setting of investigation as the ‘field’ and the data collection undertaken as fieldwork. A field of study might refer to a physical location or institutional setting, but also to social or cultural space – a site in which and through which research is carried out – a particular organization such as a hospital, or school, or nightclub, or a public space such as the park, or train station or beach. And fieldwork here refers to the act of immersion in that setting, of ‘doing’ ethnography as an act of practice. Ethnographic research can be articulated