Entering the ethnographic mind: A grounded theory of using ethnography in psychological research

Abstract

Ethnography has flourished in small pockets of psychological researchers but is not widely embraced in psychology. Increased calls for qualitative methods have taken place recently in psychology, and at times ethnography is grouped into this without proper attention to the epistemological stance and approach of ethnographic research. Our purpose was to illuminate the use of ethnography in psychological research. We used a grounded theory approach to individually interview researchers (N = 14) who use ethnography, ethnographically informed methods, or auto-ethnography across subdisciplines. Analyses led to the identification of seven categories: ● doing ethnography in psychological research; ● training or a lack thereof; ● positioning oneself as a researcher between fields; ● centering self, site, and context; ● a different model of causality; ● what psychologists need to know to embrace ethnography: unsaid and unwritten rules; and ● writing ethnography: juggling legitimacy, rigor, and publication rates. Results identify the value of integrating ethnography as a means of knowing into psychological science. We discuss this with respect to value of ethnography for furthering cultural exploration in psychology and comment on training environments for ethnography in psychology.