Chapter 5: Conclusion: Tricks, Traps, and Moving Beyond
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This document summarizes the main traps and tricks to avoid in critical ethnography, as well as why one should take a critical approach. It outlines 8 common traps that can undermine a study, such as only seeing what fits one's biases or making claims not supported by evidence. To avoid these, the author recommends letting the data guide conclusions rather than imposing preconceptions. A critical approach is valuable for intellectual growth, ethical responsibility, and emancipating people from unnecessary domination. Overall, critical ethnography provides a way to understand other cultures and view one's own with a more open perspective.
Chapter 5: Conclusion: Tricks, Traps, and Moving Beyond
- 1. Chapter 5: Conclusion: Tricks, Traps, and Moving Beyond Thomas, J. (Ed.). (1993). Doing critical ethnography (Vol. 26). Sage. 61-71. AITZA M. HADDAD NUNEZ, J.D., LL.M.
- 2. DOORS
- 3. Ethnography Critical thinking means: “taking the sociological imagination seriously by shifting from discrete instances of phenomena to their broader social context.” (p.62) Is a way of life that attempts to provide clearer images of the larger picture we are all part. Two Main Questions: • How we remain scientific while simultaneously practicing critique? (p.61) • Why should we bother to be critical at all? • Knowledge is Power!
- 4. Traps and Tricks 8 Main Traps • Most likely to occur during the interpretation and writing phase. • Can doom a study as “simply another polemical exercise that passionately rhetorical but scientifically unpersuasive.” (p.62)
- 5. Main Traps and Tricks 1. Seeing only what serves our purpose 2. Using Conceptual clichés 3. Placing passion before science 4. Making claims beyond demonstrable evidence 5. Replacing reason with stridency 6. Writing to the already committed 7. Forgetting the ethnographic project 8. Taking ourselves as given
- 6. Trap and Trick 1: Seeing only what serves our purpose Trick: Avoid imposing meaning on data. • Dishonest and unethical. “If data contradicts or demonstrate processes counter to our expectations, we must then change our position to fit the data.” (p.62) • Never anticipate what will be found in a way that creates a built-in antagonism prior to data gathering.
- 7. Trap and Trick 2: Using Conceptual clichés Trick: Avoid buzzwords. • “jargon trap” – leads to exaggerated claims and distorted conclusions. • “If a specific term *…+ is explicitly relevant to our analysis and discussion, it is legitimate to use.” (p.63) “All ethnography should demonstrate, not assert.” • Effective critique should lead the reader by painting a picture of the data, rather than by the passion of the researcher.
- 8. Trap and Trick 3: Placing passion before science Trick: Avoid ax grinding. • Concluding section must be tight and with the goal of bringing data to bear on a topic, and not to attack a favorite target. Goal of Critical ethnography is not to castigate a particular group as unjust and oppressive. • Self-righteous indignation is not only ineffective but it also diverts attention away from empirically based conclusions. • Unless the materials speak to both the issues and the audience clearly, they are of no substantive value and therefore should not be brought to the table. KISKIF – Keep It Simple, Keep It Fun! • Avoid unnecessary preaching.
- 9. Trap and Trick 4: Making claims beyond demonstrable evidence Trick: Avoid overgeneralizing. • Don’t speak beyond the data; the analysis should not exceed what the data show. • “Don’t attribute political motives to individuals or groups when looking instead to interactional processes that operate independently from political intentions.” (p64)
- 10. Trap and Trick 5: Replacing reason with stridency Trick: Avoid sledgehammers. • Most common in studies that lack data and therefore have to rely on simplified rhetoric. • Good ethnography illustrates rather than asserts – “If a point cannot be asserted empirically, then it should not be asserted.” (p.65) • Empirical analysis should be thought as a scalpel, not a cudgel. And the metaphor of incisiveness is more effective than the metaphor of battering. or
- 11. Trap and Trick 6: Writing to the already committed Trick: Remember the audience. • Don’t preach to those already convinced of your ideas, but instead try to reach those who are not. • Who those “others” are? “All ethnography is a dual translation process.” (p.66) • Best strategy: • Fluency in “three languages:” the subjects, yours, and the audiences. • Anticipate the strongest arguments that all type of critics might raise. • “Intellectual integrity is never sacrificed to expediency.” (p.66)
- 12. Trap and Trick 7: Forgetting the ethnographic project Trick: Appreciate difference. • “Critical ethnography is emancipatory.” (p.67) • Goal of studying stigmatized populations should be to convey a common humanity by comparing these with other populations juxtaposing the unfamiliar with what it is more familiar and place it in a new context. “Writing is communication.” (p.67) • The use of a literary style is “more effective than a stream-of- consciousness presentation of data.”
- 13. Trap and Trick 8: Taking ourselves as given Trick: Discover reflexive who we are. • Ethnography is talk about data and analysis of the data. • “Requires that we reflect who are we and what we say,” “how we might influence and shape the slice of culture we study,” and “how we ourselves are changed.” (p.67) “If our views change the product of our study changes.” (p.67) • Applicable to both the researcher and the participants under study. • Avoid falling into the trap of creating a product of assertions rather than a demonstrable claim.
- 14. Why be Critical? Partly normative and partly practical A. Personal satisfaction • Integrates the private with the professional sphere of existence • Becomes an exhilarating challenge. B. Ethical Obligation • There is always something better, and the goals of knowledge should include to work towards it.
- 15. Why be Critical? C. Intellectual responsibility • Tends to transform conflicts of interest into theoretical challenges. • Makes development of knowledge socially contingent in a responsible way “because it provides a consumer warning while attempting to refine its product.” (p.69) D. Emancipatory potential • “Free us from existing and unnecessary forms of cultural domination” (p.69), and from ignorance, “by identifying and challenging them” (p.70) • “It requires continually questioning the limits of our certitude.” (p.70)
- 16. Conclusion Critical ethnography challenges the “primacy of professional technique and authority” by identifying “what oppresses and how it can be altered.” (p.71) • Invites to engage in social change by “breaking the chalk.” • “When done with subtlety and adherence to the data, it becomes a powerful means both to understand other cultures and to think about our own in new ways.” (p.71) • Why Critical Ethnography?
Editor's Notes
- #3: http://youtu.be/z6LKpIUJ-II Why is this critical ethnography? The role and importance of “doors”
- #4: 1st question is one of technique and the 2nd is a personal one. Knowledge is as valuable as any tangible tool.
- #7: Never anticipate what will be found in a way that creates a built-in antagonism prior to data gathering. Can you say that you saw yourself imposing your own meanings to things when doing fieldwork in your neighborhood?
- #8: - Did you fall in this trap when writing your narrative about your fieldwork?
- #9: Goal of Critical ethnography is not to castigate a particular group as unjust and oppressive. Self-righteous indignation is not only ineffective but it also diverts attention away from empirically based conclusions. Unless the materials speak to both the issues and the audience clearly, they are of no substantive value and therefore should not be brought to the table. When writing your narrative and conclusions about your fieldnotes, did you described or did you critisized? If you criticized, was it constructive or did you preached?
- #10: - When analyzing your narrative and other data collected, did your conclusions were over inclusive or did you carefully provided detailed and thick descriptions in order to differentiate specific situations?
- #11: - Empirical analysis should be thought as a scalpel, not a cudgel. And the metaphor of incisiveness is more effective than the metaphor of battering. - Were your conclusions based on empirical evidence or were pure declarations or affirmations product of passion or other feeling?
- #12: - It is important to remember that the discourse of our final paper differs depending on who we are writing for:A classAn article for a highly specialized journalLetter to the editor - When you wrote your narrative, did you explained and defined every term or did you assumed that the reader already knew them? Who are you writing for?
- #13: - “The use of a literary style is “more effective than a stream-of-consciousness presentation of data.” - When preparing your project, what objective did you had in mind, the neighborhood or the grade? Did you consider how the neighborhood is similar or different of that of what you know from your own experiences?
- #14: Probing for some types of information will create a new awareness by the participants – which changes their narratives, behaviors, their own “onstage performances” in ways that alter the topic. A product of assertion is created by imposing your own views both on the data and on the audience.When considering similarities and differences of that of what you already know from your own experiences, did considered how who you are might had influenced the outcome of the study? Or how the study might had affected who you are? And in this sense, was your study a set of evidence or a set of arguments?
- #15: Is a two-sided question.
- #17: http://youtu.be/GzV1pNQUX5s