Chelsea Research Project: Home

As a student at Bunker Hill Community College, you will learn the way that the basic concepts and techniques developed by anthropologists and/or sociologists to help you understand various cultures and intercultural relations. In the course:

• Your course instructor will provide you with a research assignment
• Your course instructor will ask you to find and evaluate relevant information sources
• Your course instructor will ask you to make informed judgments as to whether the information sources are accurate, reliable, relevant or useful to investigating your topIc

In ethnographic research, you are the instrument for data collection.   

Definitions:

Ethnography is a design of inquiry coming from anthropology and sociology in which the researcher studies the shared patterns of behaviors, language, and actions of an intact cultural group in a natural setting over a prolontged period of time. Data collection often involves observations and interviews (Creswell 2014  p 14).
 

 The word ‘ethnography’ has a double meaning in anthropology: ethnography as product (ethnographic writings – the articles and books written by anthropologists), and ethnography as process(participant observation or fieldwork)."

The Routledge Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Second Edition, © 1996 and 2010 Routledge, Routledge, Page 243.

An ethnography is defined as a "descriptive study of a particular human society" and is an essential component to the study of Cultural Anthropology. Ethnographies require a great deal of fieldwork and immersion in a particular location or culture. Today, ethnographies can be about a community (like Chelsea) or an even smaller subsection of society (like an inner city high school). The most important part of your ethnographic research is your fieldwork. However, before you can begin to visit a community, you should know a bit about it. That is where this guide and workshop come in handy. We will show you how to find population statistics, age data, and other demographic information using reliable sources.

The library has a great introduction to cultural anthropology, seen below. It contains detailed definitions and procedures for ethnographic research. Click it to see the catalog record and location of the book in the library. 

On our reference shelves is Critical Ethnography, which is an in-depth guide to methods, ethics, and performance. Click the image below to see the record and location of this book in the stacks.

Ethnography definition via;
Ethnography. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from http://school.eb.com/levels/high/article/33138

Send a Librarian a question and we will get back to with an answer.