In this week’s reading, Luker discusses a few ethnographic
research methods: participant observation, interview, and focus group. She
talked in details about the preparation work, procedures, nuances and cautions
of each method. Luker expresses a generally positive attitude towards potential
bias/disadvantages in research. Whereas Knight is rather fair and objective
presenting both pros and cons and especially cautions the reader about the
cons. I like Luker’s approach and I see her chapter more like a manual where
positivity is seen as a momentum to overcome obstacles in research.
The part I found most interesting is Luker mentioned that
people usually make sense of the world according the limitaed numbers of tools
and templates that available to them at that time and space. Thus when
conducting interviews, it is important to be aware of how people put together
the inventory of tools available to them. I just conducted an interview
recently for one of the assignments in another course. The unexpected challenge
I encountered was that I found the interviewee and myself speaking in different
mindsets. Even though I did preparation prior to the interview, the questions I
asked still somewhat reflected the tools and information available to me to
frame my views on certain issues, and such frame is not shared by others
outside the circle and thus they do not understand the question the way I
intended. I needed to elaborate a little to let them know what I was looking
for, and of course the interview took much longer than I expected. I’m sure
some of it was due to my inexperience, yet I’ve learnt that it is vital to form
meaningful and effective interview questions. Even so, unexpected issues would
still rise in the field. It is a continuous endeavor to adjust and perfect not
only the questions, but also strategies, soft skills and nuances like body
languages throughout a research.
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