Key Business Analytics

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Ethnography

What is it?

Ethnography is the study of people in a group setting. The term is derived from the Greek ethnos and grapho, meaning ‘folk, people, nation’ and ‘I write’, respectively. Ethnography is therefore the observation and documentation of the social behaviours, interactions and perceptions that occur within certain groups or cultures.

The roots of ethnography as a data collection practice can be traced back to anthropological studies of small, rural, often remote societies that were undertaken in the early 1900s. More recently it has been successfully applied to a variety of other group settings such as urban or corporate behaviour.

There are ethical issues around ethnography around whether the study should be declared or ...