ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors look at key aspects of ethnographic research design. They argue that research design is crucial to ethnography, but that it must be a reflexive and iterative process, operating throughout every stage of a project. The authors show that new, more important or more appealing, possibilities can arise during the course of investigation. In response, many ethnographers, and other qualitative researchers, have denied that their aim is generalization. Generalization of some sort is usually part of the goal of ethnographic research. The research began with foreshadowed problems that were primarily substantive or topical in origin. Even where a setting is selected on the basis of foreshadowed problems, the nature of the setting may subsequently shape the development of research questions. Sometimes the setting comes first – an opportunity arises to investigate an interesting situation or group of people, and foreshadowed problems spring from the nature of the setting.
