Evaluating Ethnography
Ethnographic methodology is not usually evaluated in terms of philosophical standpoint (such as positivism and emotionalism). Ethnographic studies nonetheless need to be evaluated in some manner. While there is no consensus on evaluation standards, Richardson (2000, p. 254) provides 5 criteria that ethnographers might find helpful.
- Substantive Contribution: "Does the piece contribute to our understanding of social-life?"
- Aesthetic Merit: "Does this piece succeed aesthetically?"
- Reflexivity: "How did the author come to write this text…Is there adequate self-awareness and self-exposure for the reader to make judgments about the point of view?"
- Impact: "Does this affect me? Emotionally? Intellectually?" Does it move me?
- Expresses a Reality: "Does it seem 'true'—a credible account of a cultural, social, individual, or communal sense of the 'real'?"
Read more about this topic: Ethnography
Famous quotes containing the word evaluating:
“Evaluation is creation: hear it, you creators! Evaluating is itself the most valuable treasure of all that we value. It is only through evaluation that value exists: and without evaluation the nut of existence would be hollow. Hear it, you creators!”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)