Ethnography is not one method but a kit. Ask a question four different ways — in an interview, on a genealogy, on a map, across a whole life — and four different kinds of data come back. Open each instrument to see what it yields, where it is blind, and how it has actually been used in the field.
Four instruments
The notebook pageChoose an instrument on the right. Then tap the numbered pins that appear on the page to read what each part of the record is doing.
What this instrument yields
Depth of meaning
Comparability
Time depth
Structure & pattern
A rough comparison, not a measurement. The point is the shape: no instrument is strong on all four, and the strengths of one sit exactly where another is weak.
Four instruments, four kinds of datapick one to open the page
Tap an instrument
No instrument is complete — which is why there are four. Fieldworkers triangulate: they check what an interview claims against what a map shows, what a genealogy predicts against what a life history remembers. And all four sit inside participant observation — the long co-residence Bronisław Malinowski made the discipline’s signature. The instruments collect the data; living there is what tells you which data to trust.