Site designed and maintained by Immedia

Ethnography in Action: Theory and Practice

• Graduates in the social and bio-medical sciences who wish too widen their skills in qualitative research and/or who are embarking on post graduate studies or research programmes for which it would be advantageous to use Ethnographic methods.
• Practitioners working in the HIV field who consider that their understanding of the epidemic and their practice will be enhanced by an ability to undertake appropriate in-service research and, in particular, to incorporate a sensitivity to community responses to the fast changing trajectories of HIV and AIDS in their work. Ethnography provides a potent tool for such endeavours


What is Ethnography?

Ethnography is a systematic approach to the study of communities that is true to their experiences and unique processes for dealing with the complexities of the world. Because Ethnographers often work in close partnership with communities in community settings, ethnography is an especially powerful mechanism for investigating categories of people who are stigmatised and have little formal social power. This characterises the position of many women and those people currently infected and affected by the HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Intimate knowledge of the community and its resources swiftly translates knowledge and insight into actions that contribute to a community?’s innate processes for responding to crises and mobilising both human and other resources.

Ethnography as a disciplinary perspective can and does stand on it own ?– witness its predominance in Social and Cultural Anthropology, where it is the defining feature of much of the most highly acclaimed work in the discipline. Much of the research in which HIVAN is currently engaged is of this nature and the senior researchers working with and for HIVAN are skilled in its use in the South Africa situation. Our partners from Columbia University are equally committed and experienced in Ethnography and they will contribute an international perspective to the course.

For the reasons outlined above, Ethnography is also ideally suited to achieving the goals of formative research. Its methods basically work to reveal, ?“the way things are?”, making it possible to then develop the kinds of research questions required for other forms of social science and behavioural science research. In other words, Ethnographic research establishes the grounds for validity and relevance for a wide spectrum of future research activities. Protocols using this approach are typically flexible and designed to be responsive to what occurs on a day-to-day basis. The rigor is not in holding firmly to a particular controlled intervention but in being ?“there?” regularly, returning again and again to the same place, the same relationships, the same activities and getting to know them intimately. The objective is to be responsive to, and to work with communities in a participative and holistic manner. In situations of rapid change and crisis (such as the HIV epidemic) where sensitivity is high, Ethnography is often the research method that can best grasp and reveal the complexity and minutiae of both major and minor shifts in attitude and behaviour ?– or the failure to welcome change.

The full information on this course can be downloaded on the right hand side of this page