Week 6: On Conducting Ethnography

As a person of science, I often forget about the human concerns that come into play with data collection and the general application of science. I am constantly frustrated by the shortcomings of and bias in experiments and studies that are due to human error or general concerns for people. That being said, when I take a step back, I do realize the importance of care and emotion when interacting with people and conducting ethnographic studies, because it is pointless to study people with the intent of understanding if you end up hurting or ruining the very thing you were originally trying to understand.

I really enjoyed the readings on ethnography and the introduction and explanation of a few different models of conducting ethnographic surveys, because I thought the authors were fairly rigorous and scientific even though it is often hard to achieve such in this field. One of the main things I have taken away from this class is that it is necessary to always keep in mind one’s goals when doing anything that could involve calculated or delicate interactions with other people, because it is often easy to lose track of. I look forward to talking to people in Nicaragua and trying to get a sense of their outlook on life, since I will have such a limited time to actually experience a part of their reality, only being in Nicaragua for 2 weeks. My two main concerns right now are not being aware of cultural norms that will cause me to appear as conceited or rude when I interact people, and that my Spanish isn’t good enough for me to be able to process information and come up with a genuine, productive response fast enough. All-in-all, I am very excited for the trip and think that the class has adequately primed me as well as possible to make the most of my two weeks abroad.