Data
On Learning How to Ask, See and Feel
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.22602Keywords:
data, ethnography, interviews, video recording, embodiment, anthropologyAbstract
Ethnographic research involves coming to know a society’s culture and religion in several different ways both quantitative and qualitative. Interviewing, field recordings, systematic observation and the researcher’s own (inter-)subjective experiences are some of the most common methods of ethnographic data collection, but integrating these multiple methods is no mean task. Every method presents unique possibilities and problems for answering our research questions. A method that at first seems to be revealing can end up having limited applicability; and conversely, others that may at first blush seem shallow can end up leading to significant insights. This article argues for the necessity of critically assessing how data is produced and suggests that data emerges when the researcher learns how to view their experiences and observations in new ways.
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References
Benjamin, Walter 2015 A Small History of Photography (1931). In On Photography, edited and translated by Esther Leslie, 59–108. London: Reaktion Books.
Briggs, Charles L. 1986 Learning How to Ask: A Sociolinguistic Appraisal of the Role of the Interview in Social Science Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139165990
Further Reading
Birdwhistell, Ray L. 1970 Kinesics and Context: Essays on Body Motion Communication. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812201284
Goffman, Erving (transcribed and edited by Lyn H. Lofland) 1989 On Fieldwork. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 18(2): 123–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/089124189018002001
Marion, Jonathan S., and Jerome W. Crowder 2013 Visual Research: A Concise Introduction to Thinking Visually. London and New York: Bloomsbury.
Nabhan-Warren, Kristy 2011 Embodied Research and Writing: A Case for Phenomenologically Oriented Religious Studies Ethnographies. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 79(2): 378–407. https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfq079
Norris, Sigrid 2004 Analyzing Multimodal Interaction: A Methodological Framework. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203379493
