Ethnography At Manchester University

INTEGRITY recently helped conduct a workshop at Manchester University focusing on how to use ethnography in applied anthropology. We discovered a keen interest in applying qualitative and ethnographic methods in a variety of contexts across disciplines outside of anthropology. The workshop was attended by a cross section of students from third year undergraduates in anthropology to PhD students from across the faculty including the Manchester Business School, the School of Environment and Development and the School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures.

This diversity in attendance made for some interesting discussions such as how to include ethnographic methods like participant observation when studying the use of digital media or interviewing foreign government officials about cultural heritage projects to name just a couple. We also gave two brief presentations on using anthropological methods outside of academia, the first on how to plan and design a research project and second an introduction to qualitative data analysis.

Although ethnography means different things in different contexts, what we can take away from this experience is that there was a high level of common ground about how engaging with people on their own terms and seeking to understand issues from multiple sides can add value to any research project.