Andrew Flood Mara
Liza Potts
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we describe methods for evaluating the ethics of agile ethnographic research. The large variety of how the term ethnography is used and a lack of a clear scope of associated activities limits the capacity for communication design researchers to accurately and ethically conduct ethnographic field research in various settings. This paper discusses possible ways to conduct ethical ethnography by providing a common definition and case studies to support an agile, rich, iterative, contextual research process.
- Cresswell, J. W. 2009. Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. Third edition. Thousand Oaks: Sage.Google Scholar
- Fetterman, D. M. 2010. Ethnography: Step by Step. Third edition. Los Angeles: Sage.Google Scholar
- Christians, C. 2005. Ethics and politics in qualitative research. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (eds.) The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
- Potts, L. and Bartocci, G. 2009. "Experience Design" 2009. SIGDOC Proceedings of the 27th ACM international conference on design of communication. 17--22. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Clair, R. P. 2003. The Changing Story of Ethnography. In Expressions of Ethnography: Novel Approaches to Qualitative Methods, ed. Robin Patrick Claire. New York: Stat Univrsity of New York Press.Google Scholar
- Spinuzzi, C. 2013. Topsight: A guide to studying, diagnosing, and fixing information flow in organizations. Austin: CreateSpace.Google Scholar
- American Anthropological Association. 2012. Statement on Ethics: Principles of Professional Responsibilities. (November 2012). Retrieved July 26, 2013 from http://www.aaanet.org/profdev/ethics/upload/Statement-on-Ethics-Principles-of-Professional-Responsibility.pdf.Google Scholar
- Baba, Marietta L. 2009. W. Lloyd Warner and the Anthropology of Institutions: An Approach to the Study of Work in Late Capitalism. Anthropology of Work Review 30, 2 (Fall 2009), 29--49.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Appadurai, A. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
- Tacci, J., Slater, D., & Hearn, G. N. 2003. Ethnographic Action Research: A User's Handbook. UNESCO, New Delhi, India.Google Scholar
- Maathai, W. 2006. Unbowed, New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
- Spinuzzi, C. 2010. Secret Sauce and Snake Oil: Writing Monthly Reports in a Highly Contingent Environment. Written Communication, 27 (4): 363--409.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Hine, C. 2005. Introduction. Virtual Methods: Issues on Social Research on the Internet. Ed. Christine Hind. Berg: New York.Google Scholar
- AOIR. 2012. Ethical decision-making and Internet research 2.0: Recommendations from the aoir ethics working committee. Authors include Annette Markham and Elizabeth Buchanan, with contributions from the AOIR Ethics Working committee. http://aoir.org/reports/ethics2.pdf.Google Scholar
- Rutter and Smith. 2005. Ethnographic Presence in a Nebulous Setting. In Virtual Methods: Issues on Social Research on the Internet. Ed. Christine Hind. Berg: New York.Google Scholar
- Markham, A. N. and Baym, N. 2009. Internet Inquiry: Conversations About Method. Los Angeles: Sage. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ess, C. 2009. Digital Media Ethics. Polity Press: Malden, MA.Google Scholar
- Hine, C. 2000. Virtual Ethnography. Thousand Oaks: Sage.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- The ethics of agile ethnography
Recommendations
Ethnography considered harmful
CHI '09: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsWe review the current status of ethnography in systems design. We focus particularly on new approaches to and understandings of ethnography that have emerged as the computer has moved out of the workplace. These seek to implement a different order of ...
Who is “I”?: Subjectivity and Ethnography in HCI
CHI '24: Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsHCI research applies ethnographic methods to understand and represent practices that involve the use of interactive systems. A subdomain of this work is interpretivist ethnography, which positions the researcher's perspectival view [37] as central to ...
Ethnography and information systems development: Ethnography of, for and within is development
Ethnography is a style of qualitiative research method which has been discussed in a number of ways in association with the development of software systems. In this paper we identify a number of distinct uses to which ethnography and ethnographies have ...
Comments