Crafting an Architectural Blueprint: Principles of Design for Ethnographic Research

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to enrich our conceptual understanding of ethnography through principles of design by offering a blueprint for ethnographic ways of knowing. Drawing on published ethnographic research, this article develops and defines principles of design that help facilitate the process and product of ethnographic research. Through the metaphor of an architectural blueprint, we consider the epistemological value of identifying foundational principles supporting ethnographic research and writing. The architectural blueprint offers a foundation for creating, writing, revising, teaching, and evaluating ethnographic scholarship. The article closes with a discussion of the utility of the metaphor as well as how other metaphors that currently guide ethnographic research could be used in tandem with the blueprint metaphor.

The Toxic and Mythical Combination of a Deductive Writing Logic for Inductive Qualitative Research

“…In short, reflexivity means that ethnographers understand and write notes about their research journey, including their interactions with other researchers, the setting, and actors (Altheide & Johnson, 1994). Along the way, they should interrogate their physical, ideological and emotional position within the text (Scarduzio, Giannini, & Geist-Martin, 2011).…”

“…Meanwhile, ethnography is specifically designed for complex, expansionistic depiction and theory building (Gonzalez, 2000). It is adaptive, integrative, holistic, and creative, accomplished via a general blueprint rather than a set of sequential decisions (Scarduzio et al, 2011). Let me reflect on one of my own research projects to illustrate.…”

“…Those familiar with qualitative research understand that the criteria for qualitative quality are quite different than validity criteria for quantitative studies (Ellingson, 2009;Scarduzio, 2011). Among other differences, qualitative studies are judged not by their ability to be statistically generalizable, but rather on their "resonance"-the ability of the research study to reverberate, influence, affect, or move a variety of audiences (Tracy, 2010, p. 844).…”

The Architectural Model as Augmenting a Sensory Ethnography

“…The method can be even more effective when combined with interviews or focus groups (Bagnoli, 2009;Rose, 2014), which allow the researcher to explore the things 'taken for granted' in the experiences of the participants (Rose, 2013) and can reveal hidden aspects as part of the research inquiry (Knowles and Sweetman, 2004). Scarduzio, Giannini and Geist-Martin (2011) argued that the principles of ethnographic research are similar to an architectural blueprint, in that the ethnographer becomes the architect that joins together the ethnographic 'attributes' in order to create their own 'architectural blueprint'. The ethnographer as the architect continues to reflect through observations, conversations, interviews and drawings, in order to make sense of their enquiry.…”