Ethnography

Ethnography, a primary method used in the discipline of anthropology, is a systematic approach to understanding the beliefs, rituals, patterns, and institutions that define a culture. N. Salikind 2010.

Methods of participant observation, interview, secondary sources, survey are used to create profile of a culture. Techniques like video graphy, recording, making notes, are used to capture information

History.

In the early days travellers and missionary's wrote accounts of various culture that they encountered. early anthropologists like Morgan and Tyler relied on these accounts. But these ethnography is over biased and fragmented. James Fraser wrote the golden bow from secondary sources.
When anthropologists like malinowski Radcliffe brown France was started writing their own ethnographies, modern form of ethnography emerged. With participant observation and interviews ethnography became holistic and covered various aspects like religion family kinship marriage and so on.
culture personality school scholars like Ruth Benedict and market need started add weaving culture from psychological perspective and used modern technique of photography in ethnography.
Murdoch compile a program fees and started human resource files to compare various graphic accounts. Today it is eHRAF in Yale.
With focus on language and Symbol school led by clifford started approach of thick description of certain elements of culture and argued that anthropologists should use their own common sense and meaning while studying a culture. focus on language text and symbols was increased in ethnographic studies. PHENOME
Marvin Harris are used for focusing on material as well as non material aspects of culture because it reveals the truth. QUANT
In India S C Roy was the father of Indian ethnography of around tribe. v K Srivastava has noted that today the trend is that scholar study their own communities.
Feminist schools started focusing on women role in societies and culture. They studied how gender operates in in culture.
Cognitive anthropologist studied how people perceive their surroundings like colour plants and so on. So ethnography focused on cognition
Today it has spread towards various kinds of fields from psychology, sports, sociology etc
Postmodernist thinkers criticized ethnography for being political and there can be more than one truth in geography.
with internet digital ethnography of online communities and social media is being created by anthropologists like coming of age in second Life by Tom Boellstorf - digital life ethnography.

Ethnography definition and history 1-2

Ethnography