ABSTRACT
Broadly speaking, ethnography can be thought of as a sensibility or “way of seeing” one adopts in collecting and interpreting eld study materials (see Wolcott, 1999). is sensibility can be inuenced by a wide range of ideas and theories. e methods and techniques used to collect data are also varied and can oen be shaped by the settings an ethnographer nds himself or herself in. So, to add to the newcomer’s confusion, ethnography is motivated by an assortment of intellectual traditions and is only loosely dened by its methods. At the same time, ethnography’s traditions-as well as its perspective on how empirical materials are gathered and interpreted-cast doubt on some of the common underpinnings of empirical, scientic research. For example, questions are implied, if not explicitly raised, about notions of validity and generalizabilty. All this is unlikely to be of much comfort to those embarking on ethnography. At this stage, however, it should be enough to recognize that it is not all that surprising that ethnography is the source of trouble for those fresh to it (as well as, it should be said, those who regularly ply its trade).
