ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors present some of the origins and key features of ethnography and next describe how researchers generally design and do ethnographic studies. The authors then present several different types that researchers have adopted. Early versions of more contemporary ethnography were influenced by the pragmatic sociologists of the Chicago School in the 1930s and 1940s. Ethnography is an approach that aims to create an understanding of those being studied. There are many different views about what counts as ethnography but, broadly speaking, it is an approach that requires intensive fieldwork to gain a detailed and comprehensive view of a social group and its setting. Ethnodrama is an approach developed and drawn from ‘ethnography’ and ‘drama’, coined by the anthropologist Turner (1982: 100). Ethnodrama is used when researchers believe that dramatic art form is the best way to both research and represent something. Finally, the authors describe the advantages and disadvantages to adopting ethnography as an approach.
