Qualitative Research: An Introduction to Methods and Designs

Beginning to Understand Critical Ethnography

A few words introducing the concept of critical ethnography will help situate the reader, but rest assured I will unpack this information later in the chapter. Critical ethnography is a form of research that attempts to account for and highlight the complex relationship between structural constraints on human action and autonomous, active agency by individuals and groups. By structure critical ethnographers mean the economic, political, social, historical, and cultural institutions and norms that operate in all contexts. By agency critical ethnographers mean the ability of individuals to make choices and shape their experiences so that they are not completely determined by structures. Critical ethnography ...