Thanks to one of my students i just read one of the best and most practical papers on doing ethnography by Emerson (1995), Chapter 1 in this book..click it to read the Chapter...consider this another prompt to reconsider always reverting to the default position of interviews when designing your research method.
Ethnography, of course, is a method that allows us not just to hear from participants after the event in interviews, but to actually immerse ourselves in their lives more actively, getting up close and personal in their social and communicative worlds. In ethnography, we are participant observers, jotting down notes on what we see, the minutiae of interactions, things that interest us, striving to empathically understand a world that is not our own...
The best things about this chapter?
1. A simple explanation of ethnographic concepts without too much gobbledigook
2. Plenty of examples of how you actually write field notes
3. Good practical tips of jotting down points and writing them into proper notes later
Highly recommended
