Tool for the Purpose
Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power introduces the reader to a world of discussion over the impacts and importance of ethnography in social sciences and –as the title suggests-, specifically the study of power and how the immersion of researcher advances our understanding of the concept. Ethnography seems to be against all the core principles of (sarcastic air quotes) scientific research. The researcher writes from a personal perspective (uses “I” in his/her work), he/she spends time and interacts with the observed groups, the conclusions are usually personal interpretations etc. Yet, ethnography, or political ethnography is still a legitimate research method. We need to answer a couple of questions to understand why we still believe in the merits of this particular tool. My discussion of the book revolves around two main themes.
Firstly, I believe we should all answer one important question before we start our research, or even our journey as a scholar/researcher. What are we trying to accomplish with our research? Are we trying to understand the world? Are we trying to find the answer to life, the universe, and everything? If that is the case, our job is easy, the answer is 42. However, if we are trying to understand the processes, if we are to speak to the real world questions, as discussed by Allinia-Pisano, we need tools that enable us to observe the real world.
Do you want to go to a tapas restaurant, or an all-you-can-eat pizza place? Well, it depends on whether I’m trying to taste different foods or I’m just trying to fill myself up. Zirakzadeh makes a very bold claim when she asks why we think we can find simple causal hypotheses that fit multiple cases while we believe it is difficult to make predictive statements about a single event due to multiplicity of the actors. We can go ahead and take a superficial look at several events (or take a small bite from every Spanish delicacy) or we can practically study one single event till we understand and interpret the social processes (or eat pizza till we puke).
Ethnographic studies are not random interactions with local people. The research is based on theoretical grounds and the belief that ethnography is the best method to answer the questions. Continuing our discussion of the merits of ethnographic studies from last week, I would like to raise the issue of generalization once again. Arias tells us how to generalize, but do we want to generalize our findings? What do we want to learn?
Secondly, as a researcher, where do we need to stand vis-à-vis our participants? I claim, the answer to this question highly depends on your understanding of “science” – therefore your conceptualization of (less sarcastic air quotes) objectivity –, and ontological assumptions. Is there a knowledge out there you can observe independent of you? If there is, your immersion in the study group might eventually degrade your findings. There is no explicit discussion on the different types of researcher participation, but based on the experiences of the authors (and the beautiful show of Undercover Boss), it is possible to generate a discussion over the concept of partiality and its impacts on objectivity. If the research starts working on the “Kill Floor”, or lives with the local people, should we stop believing his/her findings? Does immersion, or being partial, increase or decrease the credibility of the research?
I believe objectivity in social sciences cannot and should not come from being disengaged. Partiality and engagement, the willingness to engage lie in the fundamentals of social science research.
Labels: ethnography, objectivity, science
posted by Efe Sevin at 8:56 PM
4 Comments:
Thinking back to our class discussion, I do think the research question is important in figuring out how we structure our research. If I wanted to see if rising levels of economic development lead to less conflict, then doing an ethnographic study of a village in China may not necessarily give me the answers I need – both in terms of scope and in terms of the length of time one would be willing to spend in a village to capture this change. But if I wanted to see how community groups responded to natural disasters, then an ethnographic project may be more useful to me. There isn't one way to do research and with every method, there are pluses and minuses. It's important to be aware of the big questions -- such as how do you know what is true or not. We have to be aware that there is no one or right answer to such questions and to know that whatever answer we give, we have to be able to back it up with our evidence and the strength of our argument.
I think the question about immersion is interesting. I also wonder if there is also a limit to how immersed you should be in your topic of interest? For while you need to have some level of immersion in order to gain information on your issue, could there be a time when you become too close to your subjects that you do not see certain things? I really don’t want to say that we may be in danger of losing our objectivity because after reading Searle and Political Ethnography, I am totally leery of using that term, but I do wonder how much time in the field is “enough time” versus “too much time”.
With reference to Namalie's comment, I was also concerned with the notion of "objectivity" (perhaps "impartiality" is a better term in this case?).
Although I can see the merits of ethnography, I was also not overly comfortable with studies where researchers may have "spent too much time" (or perhaps had too much sympathy) with their subjects. Certainly, as the readings pointed out, researchers require some sympathy for their subjects; however, can this sympathy go too far? If the researcher enters into a project having already "picked a side" does his research lose some of its value? Would Orr's study have gained value if he had also examined the values of "scientific management?" Should a researcher looking at Basque separatists also spend time with non-Basques who inhabit Northern Spain? Or perhaps even attempt to record the sentiments of the Spanish security agents who may have been victims of violence carried out by the ETA? I personally try to avoid overly one-sided journalism, so I am not all that comfortable when I see it in academic writing.
I want to offer two thoughts. First, I echo Namalie's question about how important the question is, and I think that our further discussion of how far we can generalize findings will get at the importance of the question.
ProfPTJ mentioned on the first day that it doesn't matter what your question is; any question can be answered with any method (please feel free to correct me if this is incorrect... I'm going from memory here). I recognize that we THINK certain methodological approaches are more appropriate for certain questions (and that perhaps our peer reviewers will think so as well), but I would like to offer that it would be possible to do an ethnographic study of the relationship between economic development and conflict. Certainly, Talking About Machines seems to have demonstrated usefulness beyond the sphere of the particular group of employees that it highlights.
The other question that I still have is how to know if something is true. To quote Michael Scott, "Why does the sun rise in the morning? Why do magnets stick together? Because everybody says so. Everybody." As we discussed in class, there are two levels to this question: how can we determine what is true, as agreed upon by two researchers, and how can we determine what is true, as presented by our subjects in our ethnographic exercise? I don't hqve answers to this question yet, and I don't quite know how to frame it except in a realist "legitimacy" framework. Would love to hear what everyone else is thinking.
Regarding the question of generalization, I'd agree with those (such as Ned Lebow, who I paraphrase here) who argue that, "due to the instability of identities and the dynamism of societies, all explanations of human behavior must be local in place and time."
Of course there are patterns in human behavior across time and space, too. Yet I've come to think that our world is characterized more by contingency, than not. To an extent this is admittedly tied into a normative position animated by the perhaps nebulous, but seductive notion of "emancipation,"--an end to which political anthropology might work, for instance, by paying careful attention to micro-politics, and the many ways that power functions in a given environment.
And this may then link with the question of what we want to do with our research, such as examining how meanings are(de)contested.
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