Ethnographics

The definition of “ethnography” can be found in the word itself. The ethnos part refers to people, and the grapho part means to write. The dictionary definition describes how ethnography is a qualitative work studying cultures or individual people. However, to many other people—like Malinowki, Levi-Strauss, and Geertz—ethnography is much more than a study of cultures. Sanjek divides ethnography into two subcategories: the product and the process. I tend to see ethnography as more of a process, where one immerses himself or herself into something that is not completely familiar. Ethnography is not just crunching numbers and boiling things down to a science. It is much more fluid because it involves people, who themselves are always changing.

Before this class, I could not even pronounce the word correctly without stumbling over it first. Now, I have to wrap my mathematical head around this sort of anthropological and sociological thinking. One of the most difficult parts for me to comprehend is how to be completely objective in a study of cultures. I know that everything that I think of and do is influenced by my own culture and mindset. How can I set that aside and objectively view and/or experience another culture? I guess this is part of the ongoing debate about the value of ethnographies. When I got to the section in the Wikipedia article on Ethnography that discussed ethnographies in other fields, I realized how this applies to HCI. We have to understand the people that we design for in order to better serve them. After all, our programs and products are for them, not for us.

Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa sounds very interesting, especially since it was done in the 1920s. Mead really paved the way for anthropologists and ethnographers in general. Her exploration into the adolescence of young women took her to a completely different culture compared to that of the United States. Her work seemed very thoughtful. She did not throw away her American upbringing; she used it to give her some perspective on the upbringing of the Samoan teenagers. In the end, she found that adolescence in Samoa was not filled with awkwardness and rebelliousness like in the United States. She said that the transition from childhood to adulthood was “smooth.” I think her conclusions make sense. The things that the United States is proud of are what make adolescence so difficult. Children in the United States must learn to assert themselves because of the need to be independent at the end of their adolescent years. Rebellion, making personal philosophical decisions, independence, and many other life-altering choices are the hallmarks of the culture in the United States. This is contrasted with Samoan society, which was monocultural and did not hide the “basic human facts” of sex, bodily functions, or death. I think that this openness of sex was probably a culture shock to Mead’s readers, considering the time period in which her work was published. Even today, sex and death are awkward topics to discuss. Derek Freeman tried to discredit Margaret’s work so fervently. However, it is obvious, in hindsight, that he simply had some sort of vendetta against her. Such bias and disregard for courtesy and respect really disgusted me. I am glad that he was discredited in that aspect for the most part by later research on other cultures and her preserved notes.