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The Importance Of Ethnography

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Ethnography is of paramount importance to the discipline of anthropology and is one of the fundamental markers of anthropological research. Traditionally, the ethnographic research in anthropology have encompassed participant observation (as its primary method) taking place over a long period. Within anthropology, its introduction as a method is usually associated with Bransilaw Malinowski. Malinowski asserted that the application of the method allows the ethnographer (anthropologist) to gain insights in to the ways people relate to and interact with one another and the world around them. The final goal…. is to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world. (Malinowski 1922)
Conventionally, ethnographic research has involved the idea of a relatively long-term stay in a particular site of choice. The site (the spatial place) is selected, as it is understood to contain a set of particular information and social interactions that interest the anthropologist and perhaps compared to findings from elsewhere. The key here is the site being confined to a singular geographical location and approaching it via the traditional model of immersion within a community. But in recent years, anthropologists began to write extensively about the changing conditions of ethnographic fieldwork and the implications for anthropological practices. One significant contribution to this conversation being the notion of “multi-sited” ethnography by George E.

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