Ethnography is the study of social interactions, behaviours, and perceptions that occur within groups, teams, organisations, and communities. The central aim of ethnography is to provide rich, holistic insights into people’s views and actions. (Reeves et al, 2017). The term ethnography has come to be equated with virtually any qualitative research project where the intent is to provide a detailed, in-depth description of everyday life and practice. Qualitative research can be described as social science research in comparison to quantitative research is statistically orientated research (Hoey, 2017).
Ethnography has a diverse history , it started off as a by-product of anthropology and eventually developed as its own research method. Definition of anthropology. Bronislaw Malinowski started off his career in antopology and
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Some of its advantages include: ethnographers have the ability to act as advocates for the individuals they are studying , holistic approach to research as it takes into account external factors such as environmental and social factors, the ability to investigate complex issues, ethnographer actively participates in the community which can lead to obtaining extensive and indebt results. Although there are many advantages to using ethnography there are also disadvantages to it use in research. These disadvantages include: to complete an ethnographic study it can take long periods of time and due to this it can be expensive to conduct one, it can be difficult to undertake a ethnographic study as people may not be willing to take part, results may be biased if the individuals being studied don’t participate appropriately they may act in specific ways in order to give faulty recordings.Iit may also expose individuals in venerable positions and example of this would be individuals in a health care setting that are involved in medical research of a specific