What Does Ethnography Look Like?

1. What Does Ethnography Look Like? • The 10 slides that follow were used in the live presentation to illustrate various points about what ethnography looks like and related points. • Each image slide is preceded by an explanation roughly corresponding to Dr. Rickert’s comments in the live presentation. Return to Main Presentation

2. Passive Observation (1 of 2) • The following slide shows a ‘passive observation’ (i.e. no interview) taken from an ethnographic study of people and their automobiles. • The woman is showing off her classic Austin Mini in Dublin, Ireland. • Note: This particular photo is a re-enactment with a colleague standing in for the actual owner (no permission was obtained for public display of the original). Return to Main Presentation

3. Passive Observation (2 of 2)

4. Artifact Review and Depth Interviewing (1 of 2) • In the following slide, the Subject is demonstrating the transfer of pictures from her telephone to her computer. • This particular artifact review is interesting because there were lots of work-arounds the Subject had to invent to compensate for a bad user interface.

5. Artifact Review and Depth Interviewing (2 of 2)

6. Participant Observation (1 of 4) • Among WARP3’s product development endeavors are a number of innovations having to do with violin enhancements, particularly in the areas of teaching pitch discrimination to novice musicians and restoring already-developed pitch discrimination for musicians with varying degrees of hearing loss due to aging. • The next three slides are from an ongoing Ethnographic study of Violinists and Fiddlers • These slides show an unusual level of Participant Observation, as the Researcher (Don Rickert) is a skilled musician. • The Informant, Rachel Caveness has kindly given her permission to publish these images. Rachel is a pianist, violinist, fiddler and bassist, who is in extremely high demand in North Georgia and North Carolina. Return to Main Presentation

7. Participant Observation (2 of 4)

8. Participant Observation (3 of 4)

9. Participant Observation (4 of 4)

10. Depth Interview and Artifact Review (1 of 2) • The following slide is from an ongoing Ethnographic study of rowers and rowing culture. • The Informant, who is 79 years of age, is showing the Researcher his various rowing equipment, including work-arounds such as the large rear-view mirror he has installed on his cap. • (one faces backwards when rowing—rowing a single shell requires constant head turning to see where one is going, which is quite difficult for a 79 year old.) Return to Main Presentation

11. Depth Interview and Artifact Review (2 of 2)

12. Passive Observation (1 of 2) • The following slide illustrates passive observation of ritual that is very important to serious rowers, the unveiling and launch of a new boat. Return to Main Presentation

13. Passive Observation (2 of 2)

14. Passive Observation (1 of 2) • The following slide, another passive observation is interesting, as it shows work-arounds gone awry. • The mud-puddle is marked with an iron bar stuck in the ground. The rowers carrying the ‘eight’ have ignored the puddle and the iron bar! Return to Main Presentation

15. Passive Observation (2 of 2)

16. Illustration of Opportunistic Observations (1 of 3) • The next two slides were shown to illustrate that you sometimes have to make due when you see something interesting and don’t have your cameras. • The photos were taken with a camera phone that was still in its waterproof bag, as the Researcher had just finished rowing • (note: the Researcher learned to row and joined a rowing team to allow use of the powerful Participant Observation technique). Return to Main Presentation

17. Illustration of Opportunistic Observations (2 of 3)

18. (Illustration of Opportunistic Observations (3 of 3) Return to Main Presentation