Reflection Paper on the reading “What is Ethnography?”

What is Ethnography?

There is no concrete well-defined form that can be described what is ethnography at once because of its complex historical used in various social sciences research.   But this does not mean that it has no distinctive character of its own.  It is described in the reading that the “natural settings,” and the used of exploratory and open-ended approach are the main or distinctive features of ethnography which I think contributed to its “flexibility-ness”.  Ethnography being used in many social sciences masked its identity at first glance.  But looking closely, you I discovered that it has a well-defined general feature that also fits with or overlaps with other processes used in research methods, and my assumption that it is the reason why it had been used widely in various disciplines may be true.

Positivism viewed ethnography through the lens of the objectivity of scientific logic which regarded it as ‘subjective’ and inappropriate for social sciences research because it does not conform to or not limit itself to the boundaries of scientific method.  Ethnography then leaned towards the philosophy of naturalism which, as opposed to positivism, proposes that the social world should be studied in its natural setting, on everyday context, undisturbed by the researcher.  Overtime, these philosophical positions continued to assert themselves in research each claiming that the product of their research accurately represent the reality of the social world.

However, these ideological movements share common goal in their futile attempts in limiting if not removing the influence of the researcher on the group being researched.  The inherent biases and prejudices of the researcher should be, instead of suppressing them, used as an adjunct tool in bringing about, if all possible, the social reality with total acceptance that it is relatively true.

Another concern is that texts cannot described exactly what is actually seen in the field, and they are just reconstruction of the event using rhetorical strategies of the researcher.  And all social sciences research, whether under the controlled environment or in the field, the inherent reflexive nature of it should be considered including the implications to the interpretation of data with precautions on the political motive of the researcher behind.

In my opinion, since all philosophical standpoints cannot stand alone, it is not rational to adhere to any philosophical ideas in understanding a social phenomenon (because social phenomenon behaves differently from physical phenomenon) because it really has no permanent basis and cannot be generalized because meanings change constantly from one place to another and from one time to the next.  One ideology may make sense today, but tomorrow it could just be madness.