Doing Ethnographic Research. Kimberly Kirner

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      Preface

      We are a mother–daughter duo who are passionate about teaching, especially for students who come underprepared and under-resourced. We deeply believe in the ability of all students to learn and grow, and in the capacity for education to be transformational for individuals and entire communities. Our central tenet is that methodological skill is a cornerstone for social change work. Students trained in qualitative methodology gain more than new knowledge and skills: They develop critical thinking and analysis skills, they learn the power of storytelling, and they begin to “own” their own stories and a role they can play in serving their own or others’ communities. While methodology is so often thought of as a dry, academic set of skills for students to master, to us, it is part of the foundation for empowering students as future academics, advocates, and activists. It builds on the informal and intuitive ways students already come to know their social worlds, and it offers formalized ways to merge the objective and subjective, to reflect deeply and carefully, and to become recognized as legitimate producers of knowledge.

      While we are critical of this process of legitimacy, believing in multiple intelligences and learning styles, multiple backgrounds and competencies, and multiple ways of knowing as equally legitimate, we recognize that power and authority are embedded in formalized systems of education and knowledge production. Our goal, therefore, is to open such formalized education in methodology in inclusive, accessible ways to students who may be entering such an endeavor from an underserved or underrepresented social space. We were once those students: a young mother working on her bachelor’s degree as her oldest daughter finished high school. Indeed, we completed our doctorates in the same decade! We were, together, the first in our families to achieve the terminal degree in our fields, and we came to that place through state university systems. We conquered our own poverty through our educations, and we have dedicated our lives since to serving similar communities through our teaching and research. We have lived the transformative power of education, personally and professionally, and we hope that this will also be the path for many students who encounter this book and then bring their new capacities back to their families and communities.

      Connecting the Workbook and the Textbook

      Students who are beginning to learn about the research process often struggle not with how to acquire data but rather with how to articulate what their project is and why their project matters. Most students in anthropology, sociology, psychology, or other social science fields can, relatively early on, learn to ask questions in an interview or to make a survey—even if it feels uncomfortable at first. However, students frequently feel a bit lost in how to understand the comprehensive process of research—from design to write-up. Creating a design that works, analyzing data in meaningful ways, and describing their findings to others are at the heart of the challenge. This text was created to help you—the student learning qualitative methods for the first time—understand and be able to execute the entire process of research design. The first time will be awkward as you try many new things, but the only way to get good at something is to practice, so be brave and leap in!

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