ABSTRACT
The conduct of ethnography can seem deceptively simple, by contrast for example with the pursuit of quantitative research. It may appear to require only that one ‘act naturally’, putting aside any methodological rules and constraints. Perhaps for this reason, in the past, new ethnographers were sometimes given little or no research advice before they set out on their fieldwork. Nader (1986), for example, tells how this was a tradition among North American anthropologists:
Before leaving Harvard I went to see Kluckhohn. In spite of the confidence I had gained from some of my training at Harvard, this last session left me frustrated. When I asked Kluckhohn if he had any advice, he told the story of a graduate student who had asked Kroeber the same question. In response Kroeber was said to have taken the largest, fattest ethnography book off his shelf, and said, ‘Go forth and do likewise.’
