Entering the Native's Social World: Some Practical Methods Used in the Achievement of Adequate Ethnography

Abstract

A central goal of ethnography is to enter into or understand the meaning native members themselves attach to their interactional behavior. Ethnographers, however, are silent in respect to describing how in practice they appropriate features of the members' perspective. This paper uses an ethnomethodologically informed approach to speculate about the process in ethnography whereby the analyst manages the retrieval of the members' perspective without influencing its makeup by his own analytic frame. The paper concludes with the suggestion that various practical methods are employed that allow the ethnographer to warrantably attach his claim of understanding directly to members' social structures and experiences. These loosely articulated practical methods are viewed as sensitizing frames and glosses for the actual practices ethnographers might demonstrate upon empirical examination of their work.