Ethnographic methods don’t make an ethnographer
Experience Designer + ResearcherPhD Candidate (Anthropology + Sociology)
@michaelpalmyre
Michael Palmyre
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Academia Design
Designing the right thing
Designing the thing right
FIELD NOTES
FIELD NOTESFIELD
NOTES
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Hormel
Hired an anthropologist to understand how Spam ‘fits’ into peoples’ lives
SPAM
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Stripe Partners
What happened before What’s happening now Where things might go
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What are we actually doing?
Understanding or Delivering
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graphyEthnopeople, company, nation write, represent, study
Secondary ResearchGenerating ‘etic’ understandings from
books, missionaries, travellers
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Empirical ResearchGenerating ‘emic’ understandings through direct
experiencing and embodying of practice and culture
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ProduceInterpretLearnObservation, fieldwork,
photos, interviews, fieldnotes
Thesis, paper, documentary,
storytelling
Unpack, sense making, reflexivity, grounded
theory, analysis
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WhyWhat
EthnographyContextual inquiryInterviewUsability testing
Explicit knowledge - Fast cultureShort term relevance - Superficial insightsIncremental - TacticalSiloedInside-outBusiness-centred
Tacit, embodied knowledge - Slow cultureLong term relevance - Deep insights
Innovative - StrategicAgnostic
Outside-inHuman-centred
Rapid ethnography
Evaluate Generate
Design Research SpectrumUnderstand
Fast culture Slow culture
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fads
deep activity
surface activity
pop culture
explicit knowledge
value systems
deep influences
embodied knowledge
How I’ve used ethnographyExploring the place of witchcraft (grigri) as
part of Seychellois culture and identity
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Finding participantsSnowball sampling
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Getting ‘in’‘Inserting’ myself into local contexts
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On the groundObserving, learning and exploring
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On the groundObserving, learning and exploring
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On the groundObserving, learning and exploring
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Groan, moan
Grounded TheoryThe development and iteration of theory
grounded in ongoing observation and findings
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Find existing literature
Snowball sampling Epiphany!
Explore tangent
Findoverlooked area
Develop framework
Find gaps
Analyse + Iterate
Analyse + Iterate
Time.
Understanding takes timeThere’s no time for deep understandings when
we’re focused on producing a ‘thing’
Production of thing Production of knowledge
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Understand first
Witchcraft
Understand the context to understand the needs
HEALTH
teenage pregnancy
high risk abortion
dictatorial law
paternalistic health care
IDENTITY
colonialism
creolité
negritude
slavery
individual
community
CULTURE
resistance
socialism
capitalism
racial binaries
primordial
embodied knowledge,
nature vs nurture
ContextContext. Context context context.
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Complexity or Consumption
Millenials don’t care about privacy and they want everything now!
Actually, it really depends on the context and the individual. Blanket statements like this one misrepresent entire populations and give organisations empty findings that lead to bad decisions.
While familiarity with a privacy-reduced, have-it-now world may be more common among younger demographics, it is incorrect to say that this statement applies to all ‘young’ people. Some participants sought time to think before signing up, and for it to be face-to-face, as opposed to ‘instant’ and online, so they could interact and ask questions.
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Quote as evidence
Design Research
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‘Yeah, I’d probably use this’
Quote as narrative
Critical Ethnography
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‘ …older practitioners knew more… pure grigri… ’
Quote as narrative
‘ …older practitioners knew more… pure grigri… ’
Critical Ethnography
negritudeliminality
nostalgia
dilution
mimicry
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purity
TakeawaysAlways interpret what you collect
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‘…there is no insight in mere facts; you must interpret them.' - Sam Ladner -
‘What people say, what people do, and what they say they do are entirely different things.’
- Margaret Mead -
TakeawaysDon’t try to understand ‘why’ at the shallow
end of the research spectrum.
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‘Anyone can produce a new fact; the thing is to produce a new idea.’
- E.E. Evans-Pritchard -
TakeawaysStart with in-depth ethnography to
understand people first.
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‘Meaning is socially, historically, and rhetorically constructed.’ - Cliffort Geertz -
‘The only important thing about design is how it relates to people….we respond to that which has meaning’
- Victor Papanek -
Don’t try to understand ‘why’ at the shallow end of the research spectrum
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Always interpret what you collect
Start with in-depth ethnography to understand people first
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What we’re doing
Designing the right thing
Designing the thing right
What we claim to be doing
Designing the right thing
Designing the thing right
What we should be doing
Ethnographic megalith
Evidenced, innovative double diamonds,
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Thank you.Check out:
epicpeople.org
ethnographymatters.net
peepsforum.com
indiyoung.com
Practical Ethnography - Sam Ladner
The Interpretation of Cultures - Clifford Geertz
In Search of Respect - Philippe Bourgois
Body and Soul - Loïc Wacquant
Patterns of Culture - Ruth Benedict
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