Week 2: "A nomadic approach in a world of fortified hill towns"

The I heard the quote in the title of this blog in Penny Harvey's Ethnography speech, "What is Ethnography". It is a quote by David Westbrook from his 2008 novel Why Ethnography Matters. This is a unique phrase that speaks to the interconnection of everyone to everyone else, to the interesting things you'll find by exploring someone else's perspective.

In her speech, Harvey emphasized qualitative using qualitative methods to "engage people on their own terms in a relatively un-directed way".

She notes the importance of the relational component and of the the importance of engaging with enough people in order to detect patterns about the way things are. In the Youtube video "Quantitative versus Qualitative", the speaker stresses that qualitative studying involves inductive approaches, i.e., not coming into this with any preconceived notions about how it should be/any theories you want to prove.

Harvey also stressed the importance of answering:

What?

Where?

Who?

When?

How?

Next week, I will lay boots to the ground in order to engage and begin forming the answers to these questions.

I found this video helpful in coming up with questions in an Ethnography interview: