2. Culture and Ethnography
What is Culture?
“The more or less integrated systems of ideas, feelings, and values and their associated patterns of behavior and products shared by a group of people who organize and regulate what they think, feel and do.” – Paul G. Hiebert

3. Culture and Ethnography
What is Culture?
An integrated system

4. Culture and Ethnography

5. Culture and Ethnography
What is Culture?
A system of ideas, feelings, and values

6. Culture and Ethnography

7. Culture and Ethnography
What is Culture?
Patterns of behavior and products shared by a group of people

8. Culture and Ethnography
What is Culture?
Organize and regulate what they think, feel and do

9. Culture and Ethnography
Challenges to Learning About Cultures

10. Culture and Ethnography
Challenges to Learning About Cultures
We tend to focus on the most obvious things.

11. What do you see?

12. Culture and Ethnography
Challenges to Learning About Cultures
We tend to focus on the most obvious things.
We tend to jump to conclusions, make quick interpretations for behavior, and make value judgments about behavior.

13. Behavior
is just the
“tip of the iceberg”
of culture

14. What is the relationship between the things that are below the surface and the things that are above the surface?

15. Culture and Ethnography
Terminology:
Enculturation: The process a child goes through learning his/her own culture.
Inculturation: The process of an outsider learning a new culture.
Acculturation: Normally used of the effect of one culture on another culture but some anthropologists seem to use it in place of Inculturation as well.

16. Culture and Ethnography
Terminology:
Ethnocentrism: Interpreting and evaluating customs of another culture by the standard of one’s own culture.
Cultural Relativism: Interpreting and evaluating customs of a culture by standards within that culture.

17. Culture and Ethnography
Two key perspectives on culture:
Emic: The insider's perspective of a culture.
Etic: The outsider's perspective on a culture.

18. Culture and Ethnography
Worldview and Culture:
“Worldviews are part of cultures. They are the substructures on which cultures are built.” - Paul G. Hiebert, Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change, Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008, 80.

19. Culture and Ethnography
“A worldview is the most fundamental and encompassing view of reality shared by a people in a common culture. It is their mental picture of reality that ‘makes sense’ of the world around them. This worldview is based on foundational assumptions about the nature of reality, the ‘givens’ of life, and clothes these belief systems with an aura of certainty that this is, in fact, the way reality is. To question worldviews is to challenge the very foundations of life, and people resist such challenges with deep emotional reactions. There are few human fears greater than a loss of a sense of order and meaning. People are willing to die for their beliefs if these beliefs make their death meaningful.” - Hiebert, 2008, 84.

20. Culture and Ethnography

21. Culture and Ethnography
What is Ethnography?

22. Culture and Ethnography
What is Ethnography?
“Ethnography is the work of describing a culture. The central aim of ethnography is to understand another way of life from the native point of view.” – James Spradley, Participant Observation, New York: Rinehart and Winston, 1980, 3.

23. Culture and Ethnography
What is Ethnography?
Ethnography is a form of research focused on the qualitative properties of observation.
Subjective and less focused on numbers and statistics.

24. Culture and Ethnography
What is Ethnography?
Ethnography is a form of research focused on the qualitative properties of observation.
Subjective and less focused on numbers and statistics.
Ethnographic studies focus on compiling data about human cultures and societies around the world.

25. Culture and Ethnography
Types of Ethnography

26. Culture and Ethnography
Types of Ethnography
Participant Observation

27. Culture and Ethnography
Types of Ethnography
Participant Observation
Long-term engagement in the field setting or place where the ethnography takes place

28. Culture and Ethnography
Types of Ethnography
Participant Observation
Long-term engagement in the field setting or place where the ethnography takes place
Participates in life of setting they are observing

29. Culture and Ethnography
Types of Ethnography
Participant Observation
Long-term engagement in the field setting or place where the ethnography takes place
Participates in life of setting they are observing
Describes what they experience in a “detached” way

30. Culture and Ethnography
Types of Ethnography
Participant Observation
Non-Participant Observation

31. Culture and Ethnography
Types of Ethnography
Participant Observation
Non-Participant Observation
data is collected by observing behavior without interacting with the participants

32. Culture and Ethnography
Types of Ethnography
Participant Observation
Non-Participant Observation
data is collected by observing behavior without interacting with the participants
researcher stays uninvolved and conducts research from an outside perspective

33. Culture and Ethnography
Two basic phases:
Observation: descriptive of social situations one observes and/or participates in.
Interpretation: analyzing what you have observed.
These two phases cycle – interpretation leads to more focused observation and more focused observation refines the interpretation.

34. Culture and Ethnography
Observation vs. Interpretation (Inference)
Observation: using one or more of your five senses to know or determine something.

35. Culture and Ethnography
Observation vs. Interpretation (Inference)
Observation: using one or more of your five senses to know or determine something.
Interpretation: making an explanation for the observation.

36. Culture and Ethnography
Guidelines for Observation

37. Culture and Ethnography
Guidelines for Observation
Take notes during the observation if you can. If this isn’t possible record observations as soon as you can.

38. Culture and Ethnography
Guidelines for Observation
Take notes during the observation if you can. If this isn’t possible record observations as soon as you can.
Be detailed and specific.

39. Culture and Ethnography
Guidelines for Observation
Take notes during the observation if you can. If this isn’t possible record observations as soon as you can.
Be detailed and specific.
Resist urge to interpret what you see at this point.

40. Culture and Ethnography
Guidelines for Interpretation

41. Culture and Ethnography
Guidelines for Interpretation
Interpretation involves finding patterns and lessons in what you observed.

42. Culture and Ethnography
Guidelines for Interpretation
Interpretation involves finding patterns and lessons in what you observed.
Ask questions about your observations – as many as you can think of.

43. Culture and Ethnography
Guidelines for Interpretation
Interpretation involves finding patterns and lessons in what you observed.
Ask questions about your observations – as many as you can think of.
The questions are endless!

44. Culture and Ethnography
Questions to Ask
How does the group use spoken language?
How does the group use written language?
Why does this group meet? What is their purpose? What does one get from being a member?
What beliefs, values, or tastes does this group share? Do their specific actions demonstrate those beliefs, values or tastes?
How does this group act towards each other? Do they treat each other differently than they would in other circumstances?
How does this group see its place in the larger community? How do they define themselves in relation to other groups?

45. Culture and Ethnography
Questions to Ask
See Descriptive Question Matrix in “Participant Observation as a Culture Learning Tool

46. Culture and Ethnography
Tools/Methods
How to Map a People
COATS
Participant Observation as a culture learning tool

47. Culture and Ethnography
Fast Food Society
4 Culture Game
Muslim Community Visit
Ethnic Church Visits

48. Culture and Ethnography
Fast Food Society