Goals

After reading this article, you will be able to do the following:

• Identify ethnographic writing’s nature as part of the translation process.
• Identify the steps in writing an ethnography.
• Write an ethnography.

The Essence of Ethnography: Translation

According to James Spradley, the essence of ethnography is translating one culture’s system of meanings into another’s. An ethnographer’s task, therefore, is to uncover the complex systems of meanings in one culture and convey them in a way that can be understood by those from outside the culture. An ethnographer’s translator role involves two main responsibilities. First, it requires deciphering the cultural patterns, codes, behaviors, and knowledge observed during fieldwork to grasp the cultural-meaning system within a social context. The more deeply an ethnographer comprehends this cultural-meaning system and incorporates it into their study, the more effective their final translation will be. Second, an ethnographer must effectively communicate these deciphered cultural meanings to readers who are not familiar with the particular culture or cultural scene being studied. This is accomplished by translating these meanings into a form that will be intelligible to the ethnographer’s chosen audience, requiring that the ethnographer consider both the intended audience and the informants throughout the process. In essence, then, a truly successful translation requires thoroughly understanding two cultures: the culture being described and the readers’ culture who will be engaging with the description.

Unfortunately, even experienced ethnographers sometimes fail at the second of these two tasks. After conducting intensive participant observation and meticulously analyzing and deciphering the encoded meanings within a chosen culture, many ethnographers fail to succeed at translating their findings into a language that is intelligible to a wider outside audience. Consequently, by neglecting translation’s importance, many ethnographers end up producing ethnographies that are only accessible to a limited group of other ethnographers. In the following discussion of the steps involved in writing an ethnographic description, you will be provided with suggestions meant to help you avoid falling into this trap. The suggestions are meant to aid you in creating a comprehensive translation that effectively communicates the cultural meanings you discover.

Steps in Writing an Ethnography

Next, let’s describe some common steps involved in writing an ethnography. The following are adapted from anthropologist James P. Spradley’s work (1979, 1980). Alternative but similar steps are described in Clifford and Marcus (1986), Ellis and Bochner (1996), Goodall (2000), Gullion (2021), Lassiter (2022), and Stoller (2023), among many other sources.

Step One: Identify Your Main Audience

Before you begin the writing process, you must identify the primary audience for your ethnographic writing. The specific audience for your ethnography will impact the choices you make throughout the writing process. For example, if your ethnography is a class project, your audience will be your teacher and classmates. If you are writing for a discipline-specific academic journal, your audience will be readers with discipline-specific knowledge. If you are writing a general-interest book for the popular press, your audience will be the general public. Each audience carries with them a different norms set, cultural understandings, and expectations, so what they expect from your ethnographic writing will also be different. In essence, each audience requires a different translation (see the For Reflection box in the section Step Two: Identify the Thesis of Your Study below). Part of the preparation process, therefore, is to familiarize yourself with your chosen audience’s particular cultural understandings.

Step Two: Identify the Thesis of Your Study

To effectively communicate your ethnography to your audience, decide on a main point that you want to make. This is your thesis.

There are several common sources for finding a thesis. The first and most obvious possible thesis source will be the major themes that have emerged over the course of your ethnographic research. It is likely that your research revealed certain central values around which the people among whom you studied construct their worldviews and organize their lives.

For example, the sociologist and professor of African American Studies Elijah Anderson (1994) described how the major theme of respect emerged during his research among inner-city African American men:

Similarly, the anthropologists Carolyn Smith-Morris and her colleagues (2014) identified family as a core theme among Mexican immigrants to the United States:

Over the course of your fieldwork, you will probably notice a theme or possibly several that are similarly central to the culture you are studying. These central organizing concepts make excellent theses around which to build your ethnographic description.

Second, your thesis might come from the relevant academic literature. You will find it useful to familiarize yourself with ethnographic research that has already been conducted among your chosen study population. Other scholars’ organizational schemes will help you place your own work within a cohesive conceptual framework.

A third possibility is to simply describe the complex and rich web of cultural meanings without an overarching organizing principle. This approach privileges the emic understanding of culture over an etic analysis (Flanigan, this pressbook). In other words, your thesis might simply be to demonstrate the cultural-meaning system’s complexity that you studied. Often, this thesis type is formulated in terms of a set of recipes for behavior or as a set of unspoken rules that people use to navigate their social spaces. One common method of formulating this thesis type is to describe these unstated but universally understood behavior rules.

As you organize your own ethnographic research, remain alert to the ways in which the people who make up your study population make sense of the world around them. What categories do they use? How do these categories reveal their worldview and value system? How do they organize the things they encounter in the world into an over-arching worldview?

Step Three: Make a Topics List and Create an Outline

Because it is impossible to convey a culture’s full complexity and richness in a finite number of words, all ethnographies are necessarily partial and incomplete. Given that your ethnography can only cover selected aspects of a culture and use only a portion of the collected material, the third step is to review your field notes to identify the most important topics to include. Once you have listed the topics, create an outline around your thesis, dividing the writing into individual sections. Remember to include an introduction and conclusion.

Step Four: Write a Rough Draft of Each of Your Sections

The fourth step is to write a rough draft of each section. While doing so, try to resist the urge to revise each sentence as you are writing it. Constant revision slows down the writing process and hinders the free flow of ideas. Instead, write your rough draft in a conversational voice, as you would if you were talking.

Step Five: Revise Your Outline and Create Subheadings

Your outline will inevitably change as you proceed through the writing process. After completing your rough draft, create a new outline, rearranging your sections as needed. You might find that subheadings are a useful way to indicate the paper’s structure and to aid with your section transitions.

Step Six: Edit Your Rough Draft

Once you have a paper rough draft and a clear outline with subheadings, shift your focus to improving your writing quality. Begin by carefully reviewing each ethnographic section, always bearing in mind your thesis and the outline’s organizational structure. Make all necessary changes. It is often helpful to have another person read the rough draft and offer general comments, as a fresh perspective can identify improvements that eluded you during the writing process. Another person’s perspective can also help you to hone the translation process to better communicate your findings.

Step Seven: Write Your Introduction and Conclusion

Once the ethnography’s rough draft has taken shape, it is time for you to craft an appropriate introduction and conclusion. An alternative approach is to write a rough introduction at the beginning of the writing process while saving the conclusion for the end. Either approach can be effective, and your ultimate choice will come down to personal taste. Whichever approach you choose, however, it is important to keep in mind your thesis and the ethnography’s outline as you write to ensure that the introduction and conclusion align with the paper’s content.

Step Eight: Reread Your Manuscript for Relevant Examples

Examples are an important part of the translation process because they can help a naïve reader understand another culture’s complex meanings in familiar terms. Reread your paper with this in mind. Consider whether you have included enough examples, and if not, identify where additional examples will strengthen the paper. In particular, look for instances where general statements have made the writing too abstract, or where a detailed esoteric cultural discussion has made it too dense.

Step Nine: Write Your Final Draft

By following the steps outlined above, you have already reviewed your manuscript multiple times during the writing process. This final step, therefore, may involve simply typing the final paper draft. In some cases, it may require one last careful manuscript review to make final editorial changes. This approach ensures that your paper has undergone a series of developmental stages rather than being considered as a single first draft.

Conclusion

This article has examined the writing-an-ethnography process from the perspective of ethnographic research as translation. This approach privileges the worldview and perspectives of the culture being described over that of the ethnographer, while also acknowledging the intended audience’s importance and their expectations in the ethnographic research’s presentation. On the technical level, this article discussed the importance of organizing your ethnographic research around a thesis, creating an organizational structure with a sections outline, and the importance of rough drafts and revisions.

References

Anderson, E. (1994, May). The Code of the Streets. The Atlantic; The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/05/the-code-of-the-streets/306601/

‌Brain, R. Child-witches. In Douglas, M. (Ed.). (1970). Witchcraft confessions and accusations (pp. 161-82). Routledge.

Clifford, J., & Marcus, G. E. (Eds.). (1986). Writing culture: The poetics and politics of ethnography. Univ of California Press.

Ellis, C., & Bochner, A. P. (Eds.). (1996). Composing ethnography: Alternative forms of qualitative writing (Vol. 1). Rowman Altamira.

Goodall Jr, H. L. (2000). Writing the new ethnography (Vol. 7). AltaMira Press.

Gullion, J. S. (2021). Writing ethnography (Vol. 9). Brill.

Lassiter, L. E. (2022). The Chicago guide to collaborative ethnography. In The Chicago Guide to Collaborative Ethnography. University of Chicago Press.

Smith-Morris, C., Morales-Campos, D., Alvarez, E. A. C., & Turner, M. (2013). An anthropology of familismo: On narratives and description of Mexican/immigrants. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 35(1), 35-60.

Spradley J. P. (1979). The ethnographic interview. Holt Rinehart and Winston.

Spradley J. P. (1980). Participant observation. Holt Rinehart and Winston.

Stoller, P. (2023). Wisdom from the edge: Writing ethnography in turbulent times. Cornell University Press.