Week 10 - Ethnography

This week the readings explored ethnography as a research methodology. Ethnography arose from anthropology as a method to study aspects of human culture and the "nuances of people who live together and share similar experiences" (Streubert & Carpenter, 2011, p. 167).  The researcher is impassioned with a cultural phenomenon and immerses themselves in the environment to learn from people, draw meanings of actions and events, and understand the “native’s point of view” (Streubert & Carpenter, 2011, p. 168).  Through reflexivity, the researcher explores the tension of being both detached from their study as an outsider (etic viewpoint) and connected as a member of the culture (emic viewpoint).  There is an understanding that through participation in a culture, one alters it. Culture is dynamic and can shift--meaning is constructed by the researcher and is contextually-bound.

I feel that ethnography is often used in nursing research because it is an effective approach to understanding human behaviour.  As nurses, we deal with subgroups of a population with a particular health concern that requires a deeper understanding (i.e. migrants with type II diabetes).  Ethnonursing, as described by Leininger in the Streubert & Carpenter (2011) text, focused on studying local people’s views, beliefs and practices about nursing care.  This understanding that nursing care is culturally specific to both the layperson (emic) and the medical community (etic) furthered Leininger’s work on cultural care theory and transcultural nursing knowledge that was included in my nursing education (McFarland, et al., 2012).

Among the articles for this week’s readings, the Peltier’s (2014) article resonated with my experience as an outpost nurse in northern Ontario.  I appreciated the author’s professional engagement as both researcher and educator with developing cultural competency and creating a space for Indigenous ways of knowing.  Ethnography allowed the author to immerse herself (an educator and speech language pathologist based in Western-European epistemology) in the culture of an Aboriginal child learner.  Her narrative of her experiences (reflexivity and descriptive observations)— “abandoning [her] specific intervention goals and behaviour modification approaches” with a two-and-a-half year old girl and her father, to “talk about birds and trees and [taking] turns blowing bubbles out of the window” (p. 10-11), highlighted her transformative process of “seeing” through being with the Aboriginal child/learner in their cultural context.  Noting the Aboriginal oral tradition, need for bi-literacy, relationship of the Aboriginal child to their community and school, and need for stimulating and innovative approaches, the author develops a figure for wholistic Indigenous (Anishinaabe) pedagogy.

My only criticism with the Peltier (2014) article is that it is critical of researchers who “create change” before consolidating their understanding.  I feel that the transformative process of a researcher to gain understanding can also include collaborative dialogue with the group of interest to create ideas for change (i.e. Participatory Action Research).  I do, however, see the value in contributing to the awareness of Western-Eurocentric influence in Indigenous pedagogy and exploring and understanding Indigenous wholistic ways of knowing.

                                                     References

McFarland, M. R., Mixer, S. J., Webhe-Alamah, H., & Burk, R. (2012). Ethnonursing: A qualitative research method for studying culturally competent care across disciplines. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 11(3), 259–279. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940691201100306

Peltier, S. (2014). Assessing Anishinaabe Children’s Narratives: An Ethnographic Exploration of Elders’ Perspectives. Canadian Journal Of Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology, 38(2), 174-193.

Streubert, H. J., & Carpenter, D. R. (2011). Qualitative research in nursing: Advancing the humanistic imperative. (5th ed.).  Philadelphia: Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins.