Ethnography

About this book

Sifting through notepads filled with illegible scrawl, listening to hours of tape recordings, labeling and organizing piles of photographs and slides and cross-referencing disks of data are all too familiar pictures to the ethnographic researcher. How does one manage a mountain of data and make meaningful statements? By using the new, updated Ethnography that has proved so reliable to thousands of researchers. This edition takes a step into a new frontier - the Internet, which is one of the most-powerful resources available to ethnographers. The book now provides insights into the uses of the internet, including conducting searches about topics or sites, collecting census data, conducting interviews by "chatting" and video-conferencing, sharing notes and pictures about research sites, debating issues with colleagues on listservs and in online journals, and downloading useful data collection and analyses software. Maintained from the first edition is coverage of the nature of fieldwork, the equipment needed to conduct research, the analysis of data, the differences and similarities between qualitative and quantitative approaches and writing the report. Throughout the book author David M. Fettermen provides insights into putting people at ease, research ethics, and sensitivity to other cultures.