Discriminate between Narrative Research and Ethnography

Qualitative research in the social sciences depends on multiple means of data collection and analysis, including the tools used in narrative research and ethnography. Narrative research involves the telling of stories through both subjective and objective accounts. For example, narrative research may include interviews with subjects as well as documentary evidence like photographs. The result of narrative research will be a richly textured look at an individual, or at some other entity like a geographic place. Ethnography may utilize similar data collection and analysis methods used in narrative research, such as interviews and field notes. In fact, narration and interview are technically narrative data collection methods that are employed in ethnographic research. While ethnography can include some types of narrative research methods, though, the goal is more to understand a subculture or similar sociological phenomenon and not an individual person. Social science researchers should aim to understand the similarities and differences between ethnography and narrative research, so that these qualitative methods can be judiciously applied.
Similar ethical precautions need to be taken with both narrative research and ethnography. Researchers need to take care of the rights of participants and all stakeholders, going beyond the basic informed consent process to ensure that anonymity, privacy, and confidentiality are confirmed given the sensitive nature of many social science studies. Moreover, researchers need to protect the validity of their research and the reliability of the results and conclusions they draw. One of the great risks of qualitative research is not applying rigorous analytical frameworks to the data collected, leading to ineffectively or even inaccurately presented findings in both narrative research and ethnography (Atkinson & Delamont, 2006). Researcher bias is of course another potential pitfall in narrative research and ethnography, given the tendency to frame issues, ask questions, or formulate hypotheses based on preconceived ideas rather than allowing the data to speak for itself.
Deciding on which type of qualitative research method to choose also requires astute considerations of the goals and practical applications but also the research questions. Narrative research is best used when the social scientist aims to understand a complex person, place, or thing like an event or situation. For example, a researcher might want to gather stories about survivors of September 11 living in Manhattan and the family members of the victims. A researcher would also want to use narrative methods like interviews and multimedia documents to study the evolution of a city throughout a specific period of time. For instance, a researcher who was interested in the transformation of London during the Industrial Revolution would be using diaries, photographs, news media, art, and literature as sources of data that would be compiled into a comprehensive narrative describing London during this critical period of time. Unlike case studies, narrative research tends more towards the descriptive, not using the subjects to illustrate some other point but instead to allow the subject to become both the ends and the means.
Ethnography is more commonly used in fields like anthropology and sociology. Whereas narrative research focuses on one person, one place, or one event, ethnography is about cultures, subcultures, systems, and patterns. Ethnography is the appropriate research method to use when examining worldviews and belief systems, religions, cults, and sects, linguistic groups, ethnic enclaves, or any self-defined and self-contained social institution. For example, Mertin (2014) uses ethnographic methods to explore the reasons why Japanese students remain longer in their English language classes than their counterparts from other cultures and linguistic backgrounds. Mertin (2014) hypothesizes that there may be something unique to Japanese culture or social norms that causes the phenomenon and uses ethnographic methods and participant-observation. If the researcher had instead wanted to capture the story of one student, Mertin (2014) would have used narrative research. In this case, the aim was to understand a group of people: Japanese students learning English as a foreign language.
With ethnography, the researcher relies heavily on sociological concepts, theories, tools, and frameworks. Ethnographic research would therefore refer to aspects of culture that have been codified in sociological research and which may have a strong bearing on the subject. For instance, Mertin (2014) explores factors like power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism versus collectivism, and gender roles and norms when investigating Japanese English language learners. Sociological concepts are never absent from any social science research, but are less integral to research methods in narrative research than to ethnographic research. A researcher might consider factors like gender norms or power distance when considering which questions to ask in an interview or how to codify themes when analyzing multimedia documentary evidence. Contextual variables are meaningful to narrative research, but integral to ethnography. The researcher, especially as participant-observer, relies on observations and the dissemination of patterns when conducting ethnographic research.
Furthermore, narrative research is about the subject’s story, not necessarily about overarching sociological concepts. Ethnography may include aspects of subject’s stories but only insofar as those stories shed light on collective patterns that emerge within the group. The subject’s reaction to, perception of, or impact on sociological phenomenon might become part of narrative research, though. Narrative research methods also tend towards chronological presentation of data, whereas ethnographies are more about the themes and concepts (Creswell, 2013). Both ethnography and narrative research can involve narration and storytelling. However, ethnographic research uses storytelling as a means to the end of presenting ethnography. Narrative research uses narration or storytelling as the ultimate goal of the research. Biographies and autobiographies are among the most commonly known types of narrative research.
The methods used in ethnography and narrative research differ significantly, even though both may use interviews and narrative techniques as data collection methods. For example, ethnographers frequently rely on participant-observation as a means of data collection. The role of the researcher as a participant-observer is quite different to the researcher using narrative methods. In ethnography, the researcher would become temporarily embedded in a society or subculture. The researcher might choose to work as a teacher a foreign language school, for example, or become a member of a support group. As a participant, the researcher has access to sources of information that would otherwise not be available. Researchers using narrative methods may use techniques of observation and similar types of field notes but not assume the role of participant-observer to ensure detachment. The researcher needs to collect stories and details from the primary sources, allowing the descriptions to unfold. Narrative research and ethnography are both collaborative in nature, but the role of the researchers in each will be different (Creswell, 2013). In narrative research, researchers allow the stories of individuals—especially those of marginalized individuals—to use their own terms and concepts and potentially shape understanding of broader issues.
Appropriate uses for narrative research include any situation in which a person’s story needs to be told to shed light on an unknown, under-reported, or under-appreciated phenomenon. The emphasis is typically on a single individual, and the results of the research may later be used to trigger further ethnographic inquiry into a community of people or culture that has experienced similar things that were revealed in the narrative research. Because ethnography does employ some of the same tools used in narrative inquiry, such as interview and storytelling, the two methods can be complementary and used together in mixed methods qualitative research. A narrative inquiry and an ethnography can also both be longitudinal in nature, but narrative research will focus on a single person, place, or event and not on the broader patterns or cultures that the ethnographer investigates. With ethnography, the researcher describes a culture or subculture and not a single individual. Ethnography and narrative research therefore have what Creswell (2013) calls different units of analysis (p. 104). The two methods may be applied in different situations to answer different research questions. For instance, a narrative research would be best used to tell one person’s story, whereas ethnography would entail multiple stories that yield themes and patterns. The researcher in narrative research can locate patterns and themes but not extrapolate to an entire culture.
Data presentation and analysis is also different between ethnography and narrative research. With narrative research, the researcher can also present data in story format, using the techniques used in chronological storytelling such as a biography or autobiography. The process is sometimes called “restorying,” since the researcher takes the subject’s own storytelling, processes it and arranges it accordingly, and then tells a story about that person in language that reaches the target audience (Creswell, 2013, p. 104). An ethnographer gathers data from observations gathered during formal field work and other types of qualitative methods like focus groups or interviews and then presents the material more in the form of scientific findings. The researcher introduces the person’s story and why it may be relevant to the reader in narrative inquiry, whereas with ethnography the researcher introduces the material in terms of culture and sociological concepts. Of course, researchers using both narrative and ethnographic methodologies will want to explain to their audience why they selected the research method and what value the results of the research will have on the social science community or for influencing public policy. Both narrative research and ethnography unearth patterns, issues, and themes that may later be used to stimulate future research.
One of the most important ways narrative research distinguishes itself from ethnography is that it naturally involves the subjective and unique experiences, opinions, and beliefs of an individual—including those who are situated as outsiders or in opposition to their community. Ethnography, on the other hand, seeks the common ground between individuals and discounts individuality in favor of group identity and shared values. In both, though, symbolic interactionism, socio-linguistics, metaphors, myths, and the construction of meaning become important to how the data is collected and especially in how it is later analyzed and presented to the research community (Bruce, Beuthin, Shields, et al., 2016). One of the situations in which narrative research would be preferable to ethnography is when exploring shared experiences among those who do not come from the same background or belief system. A prime example would be patient narratives, which are used with increasing frequency in nursing science research (Clandinin, Cave & Berendonk, 2016). Patients from different age, cultural, and gender identity cohorts all interact with the medical or healthcare system. Their experiences with the healthcare system can be documented using narrative research methods. It is not as if these patients form a subculture, but that their individual experiences with the healthcare system indicate a shared experience. The narration of that experience through systematic social science research can then become important data used in changing hospital policies or healthcare policy.
Another example highlighting the differences between ethnography and narrative research would be with regards to membership in terrorist organizations. A researcher interested in finding out what motivates individuals from various backgrounds to join a group like ISIS, for example, would turn to narrative research in order to capture the life histories and experiences of disparate people who ended up becoming members of the group. On the other hand, a researcher interested in finding out and explicating the social norms, values, political philosophies, and belief systems of ISIS or another terrorist group would use ethnography. Issues like identity and values will arise in both situations and scenarios; interviews and photographic evidence may also be used in either narrative research or ethnography. Yet the overall approach is quite different. Using the example of healthcare, an ethnographer might investigate how people from South Asian backgrounds interact with physicians using an ethnographic methodology to show how healthcare workers can improve outcomes with this patient cohort. Another researcher might want to document one South Asian patient’s different experiences with medical systems from the home country versus the United States.
Research questions determine the research method, which in turn impacts data collection, analysis, and the presentation of results. Neither research method is superior or more valid than the other; both have methodological issues and concerns that can be addressed through rigorous application of scientific means and methods to preserve ethnical integrity (Polkinghorne, 2007). It is critical that researchers remain true to the method selected for the research, choose the most appropriate method for answering the research question, and present the findings in authentic ways that contribute to the growing body of evidence on the subject.






References

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