Ethnography

From Dar

Ethnography in business

Andy Crabtree writing in Computing Business 22 Jun 2006

http://www.computingbusiness.co.uk/computing-business/features/2158672/working-knowledge

"Ethnography is one of the oldest methods in the social science research field. It emerged from anthropology in the early 1900s as the study of far-away tribes, but was soon used by members of the pioneering Chicago School of Sociology to study more mundane aspects of our own lives. Also known as participant observation, ethnography has been used to study work and organisation since the 1940s.

It has been exploited in the design of IT systems since the 1980s, when Lucy Suchman, Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University, in her book Plans and Situated Action, discussed the profound mismatch between the generic models of work on which IT systems were built at the time, and the actual nature of work in which they were used.

Naturalistic analysis

Suchman’s research encouraged the uptake of ‘naturalistic’ analysis of work in systems design, focusing on the practical nature of work and technology use.

The organised arrangements of work in which IT systems are embedded are produced in the actions and interactions of the employees. When studying work, ethnography seeks to unpack the arrangements of co-operation and collaboration that inhabit work and provide its make-up.

The approach is distinct from industrial engineering in its refusal to break down the work into discrete processes and/or tasks. This is insufficient to develop an adequate understanding of the real world, real-time character of work in any organisation."