Customer Reviews

The Ethnographer's Method (Qualitative Research Methods)

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As a 30 year practitioner/apprentice, I thought I might dislike this book about ethnographic method. To paraphrase my colleague Clint Sanders we've probably seen enough ethnographic cookbooks; it's time to just get on with it. I was especially suspicious of any approach that might be characterized as "ethnography lite," which as one waggish practitioner recently put it may be likened to a new product "designer with a video camera." Ethnography is all the rage in business these days, and the method is ripe for abuse.

As it turns out, I do like the book, and fortunately it is neither a cookbook, nor ethnography lite. Instead it comprises a witty and very useful updating of the scientific characteristics of ethnography, especially those that differentiate it from quantitative research and other forms of qualitative research. In this regard, it will be quite useful to non-ethnographers who are frustrated by what they inappropriately perceive as ethnographers' relatively cavalier attitude towards methodology. The book is also an unapologetic defense of ethnography's strengths. Finally, it focuses attention on those aspects of ethnography least understood and most poorly practiced by ethnographic neophytes, data analysis and interpretation.

The book is organized around three key characteristics that the author employs to differentiate ethnography form other research orientations. Stewart devotes a chapter each to objectivity veracity, and perspicacity, respectively.

Veracity is the first epistemic criteria of good ethnography Stewart explores. Veracity is his solution to the question often raised by conventional auditors about ethnography's claim to validity. Veracity is simply the verisimilitude of depiction, the truth-value of the observations claimed in ethnographic descriptions. Stewart explains how prolonged field work, good participative role relationships, attentiveness to context, deploying multiple modes of data collection, and searching for disconfirming observations are the best guarantors of veracity. The core characteristics of ethnographic fieldwork in other words warrant claims to ethnographic veracity.

Stewart's solution to the question often raised by conventional auditors about ethnography's claim to reliability is the substitute criterion of objectivity. Reliability is not a goal of ethnography, because ethnography cannot make a claim to consistency, one of the dimensions of reliability in conventional research. Objectivity may be partialed into three sub-constructs, replication, bias, and specification. Ethnography cannot be replicated for reasons the author very usefully details. However, ethnography can deploy tactics to contend with bias and specificity. Specificity means detailing context and findings in such a way that ethnographic interpretation could be potentially disconfirmed in a follow-up study. Controlling bias and specifying context and results enable auditors to judge whether the ethnographer's results transcend his or her (inevitably) limited perspective as a scientist.

Perspicacity is Stewart's solution to the question often raised by conventional auditors about ethnography's claim to generalizability. Perspicacity is the "capacity to produce applicable insights" (p. 47). This solution is linked to Stewart's point that ethnography is a discovery-oriented procedure unlike conventional statistical work, which is a confirmatory procedure. Further, unlike the findings in laboratory science that are very tightly coupled to procedure, ethnography's "findings-at least those "revelatory incidents" to use James Fernandez' felicitious phrase, and interesting findings that transcend the merely descriptive-are loosely coupled with data handling procedure. The reason as Stewart explains is that creativity and the overdetermination of pattern and method are prerequisites of ethnographic perspicacity" (p. 62).

This book will be useful to four audiences the author identities. Beginning ethnographers in marketing and management comprises the first audience. Given the dearth of qualified mentors in these fields, students need all the help they can get. This book provides them with an epistemological warrant; not however a guide to doing ethnography. The second audience is junior ethnographers hoping for positive reviews from non-ethnographic faculty, departments, journals and funding agencies, an apt description of virtually every audience an ethnographer in marketing or management will encounter. This book provides ammunition for the uninformed critique such audiences are apt to provide of ethnographies. The third audience is faculty who are not knowledgeable about ethnography but who are honestly looking for criteria by which they may distinguish successful ethnographic projects. It will be very useful for faculty members who are not trained ethnographers, but who are advising students who are employing these methods. The fourth audience is any scholar untrained in ethnography who would like to be able to assess the methodological foundations of ethnographies they may read. In other words, this book should prove useful for reviewers, those who are placed in a gate-keeping role. Stewart's book provides clear guidelines for evaluating ethnographic work at the same time as it vigorously defends the paradigmatic differences between ethnography and so-called conventional research.

Combining this book with the published record in marketing journals, for example, the work of Eric Arnould and Melanie Wallendorf; Russell Belk, John Sherry and Melanie Wallendorf; Susan Spiggle; Barbara Stern; and, Craig Thompson as well as previously published works in the Sage qualitative methods series, fledging marketing ethnographers now have a methodological corpus with which they can position their efforts.

Some References

Arnould, Eric J. and Melanie Wallendorf (1994), Strategy Formulation, Journal of Marketing Research, XXXI (November), 484-504,

Belk, Russell W., John F. Sherry, Jr. and Melanie Wallendorf (1988), "A Naturalistic Inquiry into Buyer Seller Behavior at a Swap Meet," Journal of Consumer Research, 14 (March), 449-470.

Sanders, Clinton R (1999), "Prospects for Post-Postmodern Ethnography," Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 28 (December), 669-675.

Spiggle, Susan (1994), "Analysis and Interpretation of Qualitative Data in Consumer Research," Journal of Consumer Research, 21 (December), 491-503.

Stern, Barbara B.

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