In this episode we pivot from grounded theory to explore participatory and collaborative research. We'll delve into ethnography and case studies and I'll share some of my own insights into the various synergies between the methodologies  and explore how as interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners, we have the incredible opportunity to work across the (artificial?) boundaries of various methodological camps if we so desire. 

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

 Well, hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of our class podcast. We're more than halfway through our course and I'm excited to see your ideas for your emergent research designs taking shape. Remember, the more we talk about your projects, the deeper we delve into some of these research methodologies, the more the specifics of your research design will become clear to you.

 So we started our journey by exploring the possibilities and challenges of interdisciplinary research design, and in our last episode we began diving into our exploration of different research methodologies.

 We started with grounded theory, and in this episode we're going to explore ethnography and case studies. And trust me, we have much more to explore.

 Well, last week in episode 5 of our podcast series, we focused on grounded theory. So, as we pivot to explore participatory and collaborative research this week, we'll take today's episode to delve deeper into ethnography and case studies. Then, next week, expect a thorough exploration of participatory and collaborative research.

 In this episode I'll continue to share some of my own insights into the various synergies between the methodologies we're exploring. You may recall that last week's episode on grounded theory I discussed the methodologies relationship to the early and mid-19th century interactionist and social constructionist schools.

This is a link Grounded Theory has with ethnography. I'd like to emphasize this, because as interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners, we have the incredible opportunity to work across the boundaries of various methodological camps. If we so need to.

 Let's dive right in and start triangulating the unit resources into a broader discussion

 Ethnography is the grand old domain of cultural anthropology. From pioneers like Franz Boas and Malinowski to the modern thinkers like Clifford Geertz, the landscape of ethnography has seen remarkable evolution. A fun yet contentious claim is that some sociologists actually believe anthropology borrowed ethnography. I don't quite believe this, but as someone trained in anthropology I will say that sociology has had its fair share of contributions to ethnographies starting as early as the 1920s.

For example, Robert Parks, the Father of American Urban Sociology, once said — and I quote — "Sit in the luxury hotel lounges and on the flop-house doorsteps; go get your pants dirty in real research". This speaks to the essence of ethnography: fieldwork and firsthand observation. But fieldwork isn't the only way to do ethnography, it has diversified, and we'll touch more on that later in this episode.

From my perspective, the main difference between classical sociological ethnography and anthropological ethnography is anthropology's emphasis on extended field work within "traditional" cultures, whereas sociological ethnography is interested in urban, organizational issues, and "modern" cultures—we could have a whole class dedicated to unpacking those binaries! This distinction between anthropology and sociology is significant because it helps frame our understanding of ethnography and its descendants. I'll go into more detail about this later in this episode.

 So, let's start with participant observation. Participant observation is really at the heart of both of these ethnographic traditions. In anthropology, for example, participant observation replaced late 19th century armchair ethnography that had based its analysis on the accounts of earlier travel writers, missionaries, colonial officers, and others. The same is true in sociology, with the difference being the specific focus of the research on the various elements that comprised the "modern" and largely urban institutions, as well as the norms and values of society.

 Well, my wife Melanie always jokes about how living with an anthropologist is great because I have intel on what's going  on in the neighborhood. Well, the covert nature of ethnography, however, has not gone unnoticed. During the 1970s, during the Vietnam War, there was a major crisis in anthropology when it was revealed that anthropologists were actually working covertly for the government.

Well, let's go to the concept of fieldwork. Fieldwork has now become synonymous with ethnography. However, it is possible to do ethnography without being immersed in a field site for an extended period of time. Ethnography is ultimately a case study and tends to imply qualitative methods; it provides a counter-narrative to the well-established quantitative methods developed in the late nineteenth century.

 During the 1980s and the 1990s, the textual turn of ethnography was fueled by the critical and post-colonial approaches that emerged within anthropology. Said's 1978 Orientalism and Clifford and Marcus's 1986 writing culture, The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, really marked the beginning of this major shift in the epistemological tradition. As a result of this shift, we now have a tremendous amount of variety in ethnography. Public ethnography, multi-species ethnography, auto-ethnography, and diffractive ethnography are only a few of the many new approaches to this representational practice. The idea of collaborative ethnography and its connection to participatory action research, which I'll explore in next week's episode, also emerged during this period as a new way of positioning this representative practice within anthropology. I've written a lot on collaborative anthropology and ethnography—and this is the framework that I practice.

 I’m not sure the discipline has fully addressed or can fully address the notion of power, but this is a challenge that all social science methodologies face. The idea of collaborative ethnography also gets at some of the issues around validity. For example, one challenge of ethnography could be that so much rests on how the researcher interprets or constructs the social reality going on around them. And what about the impact of “the bias or position of power of the ethnographer” on the collection of data? The collaborative approach attempts to move away from the idea of the ethnographer as the expert and move towards the notion that it’s possible to work together with communities, organizations, fellow humans, or even animals, plants, and spirits to develop “fair” and “accurate” representations of cultural practices and ontological traditions. The idea of multi-sited ethnographies and even multi-vocal and multi-species ethnographies is also trying to address this issue of power and bias.

 So, In parallel to the development of ethnographic practices within anthropology, was the development of the interactionist sociology of the Chicago School between 1917 and 1942. This new approach to ethnography emphasized everyday interactions as a window on “modern” social organization and communities.  As a 'descendent' of interactionism, and symbolic Interactionism, Ethnomethodology emerged as a branch of the interactionist sociology of the Chicago School. Rooted in the pragmatic philosophy tradition, this methodology has been embraced as a way to understand local coherence in social settings. It's a response to analytical realism and provides a much-needed depth to the social world around us.

This practice focusses on representing shared expectations and organizational order that derive from mutual—taken-for-granted—understandings in interactions, including technical situations of work.

Ethnomethodology emerged as a response in sociology to what was considered an erroneously objectified social world championed by American sociologist Talcott Parsons’ analytical realism.  The intention in ethnomethodology is to apprehend local understandings that generate coherence in social settings. Many anthropologists have also embraced ethnomethodology as a response to the critical and post-colonial unpacking of the discipline’s roots in colonial representational practices.

Well, case studies can be a standalone methodology or a method, and they’re all around us. Case studies offer incredible richness in data, whether qualitative or quantitative. If you're interested in social science that makes a difference, case studies might just be your go-to tool. They can easily integrate with other methodologies and paradigms, which is a boon for interdisciplinary researchers like us.

Miles echoes this in her article, stating that case study is an often under-conceptualized and surprisingly complex practice of research that is 'betwixt and between' that of method and methodology.

Case studies in research practice ultimately refer to detailed knowledge about the nature of a particular “unit” of analysis and the relationships among the elements that comprise it.

Hammersley & Gomme, for example, make the point that experiments and surveys can be considered to be studies of cases too. Here cases are defined in the popular use of the term: an instance, or what we could call small “c” cases. An example of this kind of study of a “case” would be the variable-oriented methods of experiments and surveys used by most positivistic and quantitative methodologies. These kinds of positivist methodologies focus on breaking out elements—parts of a whole—separately as variables and then searching for relationships among these parts or variables, typically using statistically-based inferences.

Alternatively, a large “C” case study focuses on the study of a unit as a whole. And while these case studies tend to be qualitative, they can also include quantitative data and analyses. They can also be adaptive to a sample, with single-case studies providing incredibly rich qualitative data and multiple 100+ case studies also providing rich quantitative data.

The pros and cons of the number of cases investigated are usually based on the amount of detailed information that the researcher can collect about each case studied; of course, the fewer cases investigated, the more information can be collected about each of them.

The Hay's reading in our text provides some really practical steps to using case studies in your research design, leading you from the initial phase of selecting your case to the final stages of analysis and saturation. Interestingly, I think these stages can apply to a lot of approaches to qualitative research design!

Narrative inquiry is an approach that focuses on the way in which stories are built and told. It explores the relationship between experiences and the “social, cultural, and institutional narratives within which individuals’ experiences are constituted, shaped, expressed, and enacted”. The possibility of representing “nonhuman agency” through stories and how our narratives become “intra-actions with other agential cultural-material processes” is exciting to me!

Whew, that was quite a bit! I hope this podcast serves as a valuable extension to our classroom discussions. I love the dynamism of this format of these podcast episodes and how it allows me to invert the traditional lecture model.

And remember, if you want to dive deeper, have questions, or just want to chat—reach out. I'm always here.

Thank you for joining me today. I'll be back next week with more insights on participatory and collaborative research. Until then, take care and keep researching!