Journal of Socialomics

Current Strategies and Trends on Ethnography and its Role

Jacqueline Sindria^* School of Health and Psychological Sciences, University of London, London, United Kingdom
^*Correspondence: Jacqueline Sindria, School of Health and Psychological Sciences, University of London, London, United Kingdom, Email:

Received: 01-Mar-2022, Manuscript No. JSC-22-16374; Editor assigned: 07-Mar-2022, Pre QC No. JSC-22-16374(PQ); Reviewed: 14-Mar-2022, QC No. JSC-22-16374; Revised: 21-Mar-2022, Manuscript No. JSC-22-16374(R); Published: 30-Mar-2022, DOI: 10.35248/2167-0358.22.11.113

Description

Ethnography is a qualitative research method that involves a detailed study of a particular cultural group. The word ethnography comes from the Greek words ethnos (meaning culture) and graphene (meaning writing). Therefore, ethnography is also called "cultural writing".

This is the primary research method, but it is not limited to anthropology, which anthropologists often document in field research. Ethnography is one of the most distinctive features of anthropology. Anthropologists who write ethnographic magazines are called ethnographers.

Ethnographic methodologies are usually based on participant observation and qualitative data collection. While engaged in ethnography, anthropologists usually live in cultures other than their own. They are involved in the daily life of the group being investigated, observed and documenting their findings in detail. When conducting anthropological studies, researchers use tools of cultural relativism to prevent ethnocentrism.

These cultural components will be the social establishments: political, monetary and religious, kinship machine and family, marriage, etc. For example, if an anthropologist has to behaviour an ethnography of the subsistence techniques of a tribe, he/she won`t be confined to the financial system however can even look at different elements like power/authority, laws, reputation of each character and social stratification, behavior of society, instructional qualifications, common age of marriage, establishments and firms with inside the area, etc. to get a whole image of the cultural area. One of the maximum well-known ethnography is through Malinowski primarily based totally on his six years` fieldwork most of the local human beings of Trobriand islands in Melanesia. His most important works were “Argonauts of the Western Pacific” posted in 1922. Other well-known but arguable studies become through Margaret Mead most of the Samoan kids and titled “Coming of age in Samoa”. Ethnographic research is actually both sides of the coin at the same time. Like many in anthropology, it is holistic. We understand that qualitative and quantitative data are consistent, but each is a single piece of the puzzle that adds valuable insights to the overall understanding.

In fact, another important aspect of ethnography is that it is multifactorial. This means that reaching a conclusion involves multiple types of data collection, both qualitative and quantitative. If the study does not do that, it can be a useful study, but it is not ethnography.

In anthropology, it means that they actually live, breathe, and go out to work to study people. For user experience researchers, this could include user interviews, user journey snapshots, or heat map data. But to be a true ethnography, it must also be personalized, at some point in the ethnographic process researchers must be in direct contact with the people they are studying.

Ethnography is not a quick process. Rather than starting with a hypothesis as seen in the scientific method and running experiments to prove the hypothesis, starting with an open mind and collecting more information and context, new and changing patterns evolve into theory. This is an invaluable lesson for user experience researchers. Treating UX tests like scientific experiments trying to prove a hypothesis obscures the potentially subtle details of research.

Implementing true ethnography means building a system for better understanding of users. Building a good system requires a lot of spiritual effort, often incorporating the opinions of people from different disciplines and gaining insight into the problem you want to tackle. But the most valuable work we do is often challenging. Running a heat map study on the landing page and using the results to optimize is much easier than building an entire contextualization system.