Anthropology and ethnography

The purpose of ethnography is to provide, through writing, film, or other graphic medium, an account of life as it was actually lived and felt by a group of people somewhere and at a certain time. Good ethnographic research is emotionally nuanced, contextually aware, rich in detail, and above all, faithful to what it portrays. Ethnographers may feel constrained in their writing by the demands of descriptive authenticity. Because they can’t write casually, and what they write needs to be proved to be a fair description, interpretation or analysis of what the survey respondents did, said and thought.

The practical and ethical dilemmas of combining participation and observation seem to point in different directions. In ethnographic fieldwork, one of the disturbing things is superficially sincerely join a group of people, and then leave them behind, so that the study becomes a study of them, and they become a case. However, there is actually no contradiction between participation and observation; rather, one cannot exist without the other.

The worst mistake is to confuse observation with objectification. Observation itself is not objectification. It’s noticing what people are saying and doing, watching and listening, and responding in our own way. In other words, observation is a form of engaged participation, and it is also a form of learning. And we do and experience this out of the awareness that we are indebted to others in our own practical and moral education. Participant observation is not a technique of data collection, but an ontological commitment. This commitment is the cornerstone of the discipline of anthropology.

The practice of anthropology means studying with people, not studying on them, just as we study and do research with teachers at universities. This is done to make us wiser and mature, to enhance our abilities of observation, reasoning and critical thinking, with the hope that in the future we will be able to apply these abilities to any problem we may face.