This essay——probably by course design——could not have come at a better time. My partner and I are at a complete loss for what we’d want to do our final project on, much less what ethnographic research methods we would employ. Everything we were coming up with didn’t seem to work because we would need an extremely long time to conduct our research. Pink and Morgan really stress that ethnographic research done in a shorter timeline is not “limited” or inferior, but rather another tool to observe human behavior and draw inferences. The authors emphasize that with the higher-paced setting of short-term ethnographical research, it is in some ways a better reflection of the human experience and “being in (and with) the world.” This research method is useful because it demands the researcher understand more about the space they’re entering, without the guise of endless time to figure it out. Short-term ethnographic research in my opinion is superior to a longer timeframe because it asks more of the researcher and offers more reward for time spent. However, this depends on the researcher. If they’re simply looking for an opportunity to publish and are not invested in the social environment they’re researching, the short-term ethnographic research method will not yield good results. In fact, because of the mentioned reasearcher’s unwillingness to immerse themselves wholly in their subject, this method may actually damage and contradict anything the researcher had prepared beforehand. My partner and I feel very confident that we can comfortably and efficiently use the short-term ethnographic research method to our advantage for our final project.
Response to Pink and Morgan – Jennifer Cheung
Since ethnography is the study of people and cultures, it is important to be able to observe people in depth to obtain full comprehension of people’s actions and motives behind them. While this benefits from long term studies, as people’s behaviors have specific patterns over time, the length of the study is not what makes it successful, as Pink and Morgan point out. Long term studies allow ethnographers to see changes over time, but the process can be uneventful when they must wait to see action. However, short term studies can be equally as effective through deeper participant studies and focus on details.
This article was especially helpful as a guide for how to make good observations for our future field study at Shanghai fabric wholesale markets, in which we only have a couple hours to obtain data. In this extremely short term study, it is important for me to have focus and drive to make note of specific details, which will help me make conclusions for the question at hand. With only a tiny window to observe how the fabric markets operate, simply observing may not be enough to get a comprehensive understanding of how they function. As the article said, it may require being more assertive and asking vendors and customers about their choices in order to make sound conclusions. Additionally, our smartphones will serve as important tools for us to record data and the environment, so that we will be able to look back at the media and re-engage with the subject. This will aid in pointing out smaller details and making additional observations that were missed when we were there in person. However, consent from vendors and customers to make recordings may hinder our ability to make use of these techniques. Nonetheless, Pink and Morgan’s article shows that if we have the focus to observe and implicate ourselves in the middle of the action, we can still have a good study in this short amount of time.
Week 2: Response to “Short-Term Ethnography: Intense Routes to Knowing” – Samanta Shi
As someone who has conducted research for a company, I really appreciated this piece. More often than not, short-term ethnography can be extremely helpful in providing context, building empathy, and in/validating your assumptions. There are, indeed, efficient ways to accomplish long-term benefits not through shortcuts, but through “contemporary renderings of anthropological ethnography” by “doing research with rather than about participants” (pg. 359).
I can also relate to accomplishing an “intensity of data” through “video observations of activity, which are closely analyzed” (pg. 353), having recorded users’ voice, face, as well as tracking their eye movement (with permission of course!). Even though we are not studying 1000s users over the span of several years, we obtain vast amounts of data by tracking things like participant’s eye movement on the web page to learn more about things they notice, that draw their attention, or that they actually read vs. glance. This allows us to break down and analyze patterns in order to build more compelling products.
I really liked how Pink and Morgan’s summarized the complexity of ethnography. How our experiences, subjectivity, and ways of knowing impact our fieldwork and the life-long benefits of conducting this type of research:
“The sets of encounters through which ethnographic knowledge/knowing emerges are qualitatively different, their development is rapid, and intense, and will grow in different ways as encountered by different people, arguments and ways of knowing long beyond the life of the fieldwork itself.” (pg. 354)
Generally, ethnography is incredibly interesting and, I believe, makes us better humans. We don’t have to have PhD’s to learn how to observe and empathize with others, but we do have to be mindful, observant, and open to accepting the fact that we do not know what we don’t know.
Response to Sarah Pink & Jennie Morgan-Xiaoyan Kong
When I think about research, especially ethnography research, I always imagine it to be a long researching process. I believe in order to get a precise and in-depth understanding of the culture or social phenomenon, it is necessary to put that much time into the study. However, in this reading, as Pink and Morgen introduce, short-term ethnography is not “quick and dirty” but something that involves “different methodological, practical, and analytical entry points into the lives of others”.
The traditional long-term ethnography research definitely have great value in different aspects. Pink and Morgen help me to see that there are actually short-term research being accurate and useful in some circumstances as well. Here, the authors introduce three types of intensity “of the research encounters themselves; of the ethnographic-theoretical dialog; and of the post-fieldwork engagements with materials”.
It reminds me of one case that might be applied to how the authors think about short term ethnography. Companies often hire anthropologists as consultants for seeking specific and focused research on specific aspects of society. At other times, an anthropologist can be hired to outline the culture with specific findings and propose strategies for conducting business in the region. All in all, short-term ethnography cannot substitute long-term ethnography for sure. But both approaches have pros and cons, we shouldn’t deny neither of them Instead, we should choose the right one for specific situation.
Week 2/ 1 Reading Response
Short-term ethnography
In the text, the author mentions that “short-term ethnography” often understood as spending less time on a an ethnographic research as opposed to “long-term ethnography”. However, later it is mentioned that even though less time is spent in the “ethnographic place”, the researcher can have long- term interaction with the place with the help of technology. One can do further observation with audiovisual recordings. Long-term ethnography usually means “long hanging around” and waiting for something to happen. In case of short -term research it is important to emphasize with the people studied, try to do some of the tasks they do and use some of the products they do. Interviews can be important as well. The author argues against long-term ethnography, saying that in that case dialog usually only takes place at the end of the research while in case of short-term ethnography it usually takes place quicker and more focused.