Anthropology in Credo: Methods

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).

From Key Concepts in Ethnography
A case study investigates a few cases, or often just one case, in considerable depth. In ethnography, case studies are used in various ways to illuminate themes or draw inferences.

From Key Concepts in Ethnography
Coding is a euphemism for the sorting and labelling which is part of the process of analysis.

From SAGE Key Concepts series: Key Concepts in Critical Management Studies
Reflexivity refers to the idea that people are actively involved in the process of producing their own sense of reality, on account of the cultural dispositions, personal biases and ideological expectations that they use to interpret their experiences.

From Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology
There is a troubled relationship between the representation of anthropological fieldwork and the actuality of any particular fieldwork. In sober fact, fieldwork can take as many forms as there are anthropologists, projects, and circumstances.

From Collins Dictionary of Sociology
Research technique for the objective, quantitative and systematic study of communication content. It involves charting or counting the incidence, or coincidence, of particular items belonging to a set of (usually) predetermined categories.

From Key Concepts in Ethnography
Fieldnotes are the written record of the observations, jottings, full notes, intellectual ideas, and emotional reflections that are created during the fieldwork process.

From Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology
The method required extensive interviewing of named individuals in order to: (1) collect vital statistics among a non-literate population, and (2) record their pedigrees, which reflected rights and responsibilities relating primarily to descent, succession, and inheritance.

From World of Sociology, Gale
An interview is a method of social research, a question/answer session between at least one researcher and one or more subjects. Interviews are conducted many different ways in social research and for several different reasons. Primarily, the purpose of interviewing is to garner detailed information from an individual about a specific topic.

From Key Concepts in Ethnography
Participant observation is the main method of ethnography and involves taking part as a member of a community while making mental and then written, theoretically informed observations.