Qualitative/ Methodology
Ethnography
Understand life as it is lived.
Study shared practices, relationships, and meanings through sustained engagement in everyday settings. Observation, conversation, and field notes reveal how a social world works from within.
WHEN IT FITS
Your question is about what people do, how routines work, or how culture and context shape behaviour. You can negotiate meaningful access to the setting.
Strengths
- Makes tacit practices and informal rules visible.
- Connects people’s accounts with observed actions.
- Preserves the context around behaviour.
Limitations
- Access, trust, and sustained fieldwork take time.
- Researcher presence and position shape the evidence.
- Does not estimate population prevalence.
Know the boundary
Ethnography is more than a few interviews. Its defining commitment is engagement with practices and meanings in a social setting.
USED ACROSS
Banking & financeBusiness & MBAPsychologyComputer scienceEducation