Definitions?

Reading Response – Blog Post Week 9

As I was about to write up my reading response for this week’s readings, I read Melissa's post and realized I was about to write the very same thing.

So, I decided to do something a bit different. I tried a small, very unscientific experiment with Google to see what comes up first when you look up ethnography, visual ethnography, and critical ethnography. I am interested because there is so much information and interpretation out there, I am curious what are the top sites people are visiting to learn about these ideas and definitions, and how the content of those sites might relate or not relate to what we've been reading in class thus far.

Ethnography - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnography
The first link here leads us to the wikipedia entry. "Ethnography (ἔθνος ethnos = people and γράφειν graphein = writing) is the genre of writing that presents varying degrees of qualitative and quantitative descriptions of human social phenomena, based on fieldwork. Ethnography presents the results of a holistic research method founded on the idea that a system's properties cannot necessarily be accurately understood independently of each other. The genre has both formal and historical connections to travel writing and colonial office reports. Several academic traditions, in particular the constructivist and relativist paradigms, employ ethnographic research as a crucial research method. Many cultural anthropologists consider ethnography the essence of the discipline."

Needless to say, this would not be my definition, although when I try to come up with a definition I struggle to create one that I like. What are some of your definitions? Is ethnography definable or is its constantly changing and evolving due to its use in contexts that make it too hard to define?

Visual Ethnography - http://www.amazon.com/Doing-Visual-Ethnography-Representation-Research/dp/0761960546
The first link leads us to a book available on Amazon.com about how to do visual ethnography. The editorial review states, "Doing Visual Ethnography explores the use and potential of photography, video, and hypermedia in ethnographic and social research. It offers a reflexive approach to theoretical, methodological, practical and ethical issues of using these media `in the field' and `in the academy'. The book follows the research process from project design planning and implementing and practicing fieldwork to analysis and representation suggesting how visual images and technologies can be combined to form an integrated process throughout the different stages of research."

Interesting, but there was hardly a definition to be found unless you search a bit. But this book seems like something we might want to check out.

Critical Ethnography -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Ethnography Critical Ethnography: “According to Thomas (2003), critical ethnography is not a theory but a perspective through which a qualitative researcher can frame questions and promote action. Its purpose is emancipation of cultural members from ideologies that are not to their benefit and not of their creation--an important concept in critical theory. Because critical ethnography is borne out of the theoretical underpinnings of critical theory, it is premised upon the assumption that cultural institutions can produce a false consciousness in which power and oppression become taken-for-granted ‘realities’ or ideologies. In this way, critical ethnography goes beyond a description of the culture to action for change, by challenging the false consciousness and ideologies exposed through the research.”

What does everyone think about this definition? I think this fits more closely with what I think than the ethnography definition above, but again this definition still seems limiting. How would you define critical ethnography? How does the ability for anyone to define something on sites like Wikipedia make you feel, given what we have read and given than a lot of the definitions we have found do not seem to fit?

Therese