ABSTRACT
The focus of this chapter is on the use of documents as a data source within ethnographic studies. Ethnography is a method without a single definition but involves using a broad range of data, including observations, interviews and documentary analysis, in order to understand a phenomenon, society or group. It has been argued that the use of documents is essential to understand any literate society and is particularly important to understand organisations. Examples are provided of ethnographic studies which have benefited from the use of documents. Following this, a detailed case study is presented of an ethnographic study of UK welfare reform. Within this research, I used observations in UK Jobcentre Plus (welfare) offices, interviews with claimants and staff, and analysis of case files. A detailed description is provided of how the documents were sampled, prepared for analysis and analysed using framework analysis. I describe the way in which inconsistencies between data sources were handled; they were attributed to data production methods and changes in the presentation of self to multiple audiences. The particular challenges of using documents within ethnography generally and within ethnographies of an organisation are described. This includes gaining access to documents, the order in which data is collected and the impact this has on the researchers’ understanding of the group under study, and the need for high levels of reflexivity.
