Ethnography Unbound notes

Chapter 1: Intro
Michael Burawoy explains that this collection (which came from students in a seminar together) examine the exercise of power and resistance in social situations a part of larger economic and political structures. And these are particular to the social sciences, which these students are a part of. This book, does not aim to provide guides for how to enact participant observation, but instead contribute to methodology in the social sciences. Participant observation best exemplifies what is particular to the methodologies of all social sciences.

Why participant observation? Its advantages are not only direct observation of the social, but also how people understand the social: "it enables us to juxtapose what people say they are up to against what they actually do" (2). And this method helps to avoid reductive tendencies that others apply to the social sciences or manifest in comparing the social to hard sciences: first, the suppression of the hermeneutic dimension by conflating all sciences under hard sciences (in other words, bias is an inherent, cornerstone part of social sciences although it is minimalized in the hard); second, the suppression of the scientific dimension due to humanist or postmodern pressure (a relationship between insider and outsider, that it is only interpretation).

For these authors, participant observation actually confronts these reductions. And so they propose dialogue instead of distance or immersion. Thus they do not just learn about a social situation, but learn from it as well.

And, importantly for us, methodology plays a key role because it the mode of turning observation into explanation, data into a theory (which is that resistance of purely hard science and soft humanities).

Here they explicate interconnected methods that are available to social scientists:

1. grounded theory: approaches social from standpoint of its generality; each case study can be exemplar of principle or law across space and time, so the event is treated as an anomoly worth intense study; move from anomoly to reconstruction so expectations are laid out before entry into the event. The social is the failure of some theory and the theory is revised for improvement
   
2. reconstruction of existing theory: through empirical studies or exploration of gaps and silences; running commentary between the field notes and analysis

Ch 2: Social Theories
Here Burawoy addresses the divide and tension between hard (what he calls true) science and the "social imagination" of the social sciences. He emphasizes that discovery and justification can be part of the same process. Then he goes more in depth about the methods previously listed, which I will tack on to the list above. Once the components of the method are laid out, Burawoy explains how it is being used in the specific research of one of the contributors.

He offers two new strategies for continuing revision of theory and expanding on the strengths of social sciences:

1. decides what to study, go into the field work, search for theories that are inadequate--helps weak theories
   
2. locate work within a particular theoretical tradition--helps powerful theories

Thus this collection works to reframe how we view the relationship between theory and social site, which ultimately troubles the emphasis we place on theory, reorders the steps that uphold that emphasis and allows for revisionist theory making.

Ch 11: "The Politics of Prevention"
Kathryn J Fox discusses the precarious position that HIV prevention outreach workers find themselves in due to outside political and systemic pressures and confused Project interests. There is no doubt that AIDS is a concern for drug users and their sexual partners, but what is a concern is how that is handled and by whom. One major site of tension is between drug treatment workers and social scientists, which is indicative of a larger ideological rift between traditional medical models and ethnographic social problem stances. Both have different goals, different approaches, and different hopes for prevention. Fox explains that the ethnographic model was able to produce effective results in that users were concerned about their health risks, were listening to advice and began implimenting advice into their lifestyles. And this reached to a federal level.

Fox goes into depth about the ethnographic efforts because it utilizes two beneficial elements simultaneously: outreach, which delivers services, and research, which documents the social event itself.

She then goes on to describe specific outreach that the prevention program undertook, focusing its efforts on providing bleach, condoms and providing referrals to other resources. This allows ethnographers to complete the two goals of outreach and research by getting into the community, completing outreach measures and gathering research about the community first hand.

However, there are many tensions imbued in the both outreach  and ethnographic work. The AIDS program combats federal regulations that restrict aiding drug use (can't distribute clean needles as it promotes drug use) and if workers are assumed to associate with law enforcement, they lose the community connection that they foster. Further, tasks of the job itself are sources of frustration, like field notes gathering extensive information. And this means that AIDS is often downplayed altogether. Finally, the clients often have real material conditions that downplay the significance of AIDS prevention for other needs like food, shelter and earning a wage. And this frustration is only amplified by the lack of systemic change that workers often feel overwhelmed by, which lead one disgruntled volunteer to see the Project as applying bandages to serious wounds, metaphoric of naive or forced ignorance about the people the Project claims to serve.

This leads to very tricky paradoxes that supervisors and workers don't know how to negotiate. For instance, the Project is aimed at preventing AIDS, but instilling a sense of dependency on prevention methods means Project security (no AIDS= no need for prevention projects). Further, the programs success causes the program to expand to other regions, or more programs are implemented, which breeds competition. Also, the work, while helping the community, inherently conflicts with the official view of drug users, making the two seemingly incompatible. Not only that, the community is in a position to receive help, rather than set the terms of its need and its services.

What this means for Fox is that the ethnographic and Project aims cannot be evaluated based its ability to change the system or even avoid the systemic pulls that work against the Project. Instead, the Project was able to present drug users in a new light, contradicting the stigma that they were unconcerned with their well-being  and uninterested in prevention. Thus, the Project serves to demonstrate the benefits of reaching populations on their own terms and through measures the community is comfortable with.

Fox's reflection further illuminates how tension and uncomfortability can inform our own ethnographic work. Ethnography doesn't have to be pleasant nor does it need to be comfortable to be valuable and important. Instead of seeing ourselves as the enlightened academics meant to save the community, what could be gain by seeing the community as able to reach and teach us a thing or two about research and activism or social justice?


Questions for further consideration:
Ethnography has always been a method that I've been drawn to, even though I've never done it extensively. Fox states that ethnography is successful when it approaches the community on its own terms, and the entire book's use of extended case study suggests that extensive work with a community is necessary for productive ethnography. While it seems intuitive that the more you know, research, etc the better you serve the community, can empathy come from briefer interaction with a community? Is there every too much interaction and if so, what are the potential ramifications of it?

It seems that ethnography and activism go hand-in-hand, but what are the limitations of our work as activism? What attitudes do we imagine or adopt when we do our work and how does that compare to the attitudes that Fox describes (both frustrated and empowered as well as the continuum in between)?

How do you imagine Comp/rhet scholarship fitting in the category of "social service"?