Ethnographic mapping

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Ethnographic mapping is a technique used by anthropologists to record and visually display activity of research participants within a given space over time. Ethnographic mapping is used to show and understand human interaction within a layout that displays events, places, and resources. Anthropologists can use the contents of space and time to interpret a unique perspective of the daily lives of a setting and its people. Not only can ethnographic mapping be used to show the contents of space, but it can also show more abstract contents like organizational structure, processes, and important history. [1]

Contents

Mapping space

The essence of this ethnographic mapping is ethnography, which enables the researcher to use qualitative research methods like field-notes, participant observation, and interviewing. As an ethnographer, you are required to completely immerse yourself within a setting, behaving as a participant-observer, therefore ethnographers have to deal with the constraints of not having the capability of measuring and laying out a traditional styled map. Ethnographers tend to capture space using approximation rather than accuracy because time is valuable and more beneficial if used in performing fieldwork. Using basic map-making principles, ethnographers can create relatively accurate maps. [2]

Geographical informational systems

Anthropologists can take advantage of computer assisted programs that enhance ethnographic mapping such as GIS (Geographical Information Systems). GIS is a computer system capable of managing large amounts of data while also generating data with existing databases. [3] GIS displays spatial referenced forms of data, and has been used in a variety of research applications such as archaeological regional settlement patterns and designing and implementing development projects. GIS has become an increasingly popular technology to use with ethnographic methodologies, specifically with interviewing because of its ability to analyze, compare, and visualize responses. [4]

Triangulation

When mapping the contents of space in a setting researchers are required to use tools of some sort to gain a relatively close measurement of distance and angles. It is common knowledge in ethnography that not every measurement can be accurate, and for that, there is a method called Triangulation that allows researchers to expedite field measurements. [5] Triangulation requires measuring distance and angles with approximate precision, and thus creating triangles linked by identifiable features of a setting that network together to determine distances of relative positions of a setting.

Mapping organizational structure

Ethnographic mapping can be used as a tool to visualize organizational structure to indicate inter-organizational relationships and power dynamics. This type of mapping is called "Organizational mapping" and displays hierarchal navigation of the people within a specific organization. [1] These maps can be representational, meaning that they show important figures by name, or they can be comprehensive showing the entire organizational structure.

Processes

Mapping out how humans do things, is a great tool for ethnographers to understand operations and simulate cognitive processes. This type of mapping is called "Process mapping", and the goal is for the ethnographer to help the reader understand complex activities using mapping to aid research and description. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthropology</span> Scientific study of humans, human behavior, and societies

Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavior, while cultural anthropology studies cultural meaning, including norms and values. A portmanteau term sociocultural anthropology is commonly used today. Linguistic anthropology studies how language influences social life. Biological or physical anthropology studies the biological development of humans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cultural anthropology</span> Branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans

Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portmanteau term sociocultural anthropology includes both cultural and social anthropology traditions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geographic information system</span> System to capture, manage and present geographic data

A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing geographic data, combined with software tools for managing, analyzing, and visualizing those data. In a broader sense, one may consider such a system to also include human users and support staff, procedures and workflows, body of knowledge of relevant concepts and methods, and institutional organizations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethnography</span> Systematic study of people and cultures

Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining the behavior of the participants in a given social situation and understanding the group members' own interpretation of such behavior. Ethnography in simple terms is a type of qualitative research where a person puts themselves in a specific community or organization in attempt to learn about their cultures from a first person point-of-view.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nonlinear dimensionality reduction</span> Summary of algorithms for nonlinear dimensionality reduction

Nonlinear dimensionality reduction, also known as manifold learning, refers to various related techniques that aim to project high-dimensional data onto lower-dimensional latent manifolds, with the goal of either visualizing the data in the low-dimensional space, or learning the mapping itself. The techniques described below can be understood as generalizations of linear decomposition methods used for dimensionality reduction, such as singular value decomposition and principal component analysis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social network analysis</span> Analysis of social structures using network and graph theory

Social network analysis (SNA) is the process of investigating social structures through the use of networks and graph theory. It characterizes networked structures in terms of nodes and the ties, edges, or links that connect them. Examples of social structures commonly visualized through social network analysis include social media networks, memes spread, information circulation, friendship and acquaintance networks, business networks, knowledge networks, difficult working relationships, social networks, collaboration graphs, kinship, disease transmission, and sexual relationships. These networks are often visualized through sociograms in which nodes are represented as points and ties are represented as lines. These visualizations provide a means of qualitatively assessing networks by varying the visual representation of their nodes and edges to reflect attributes of interest.

Participant observation is one type of data collection method by practitioner-scholars typically used in qualitative research and ethnography. This type of methodology is employed in many disciplines, particularly anthropology, sociology, communication studies, human geography, and social psychology. Its aim is to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals and their practices through an intensive involvement with people in their cultural environment, usually over an extended period of time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Concept map</span> Diagram showing relationships among concepts

A concept map or conceptual diagram is a diagram that depicts suggested relationships between concepts. Concept maps may be used by instructional designers, engineers, technical writers, and others to organize and structure knowledge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Visual sociology</span> Area of sociology

Visual sociology is an area of sociology concerned with the visual dimensions of social life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spatial analysis</span> Formal techniques which study entities using their topological, geometric, or geographic properties

Spatial analysis or spatial statistics includes any of the formal techniques which studies entities using their topological, geometric, or geographic properties. Spatial analysis includes a variety of techniques, many still in their early development, using different analytic approaches and applied in fields as diverse as astronomy, with its studies of the placement of galaxies in the cosmos, to chip fabrication engineering, with its use of "place and route" algorithms to build complex wiring structures. In a more restricted sense, spatial analysis is the technique applied to structures at the human scale, most notably in the analysis of geographic data or transcriptomics data.

GIS or Geographic Information Systems has been an important tool in archaeology since the early 1990s. Indeed, archaeologists were early adopters, users, and developers of GIS and GIScience, Geographic Information Science. The combination of GIS and archaeology has been considered a perfect match, since archaeology often involves the study of the spatial dimension of human behavior over time, and all archaeology carries a spatial component.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Data and information visualization</span> Visual representation of data

Data and information visualization is an interdisciplinary field that deals with the graphic representation of data and information. It is a particularly efficient way of communicating when the data or information is numerous as for example a time series.

Online ethnography is an online research method that adapts ethnographic methods to the study of the communities and cultures created through computer-mediated social interaction. As modifications of the term ethnography, cyber-ethnography, online ethnography and virtual ethnography designate particular variations regarding the conduct of online fieldwork that adapts ethnographic methodology. There is no canonical approach to cyber-ethnography that prescribes how ethnography is adapted to the online setting. Instead individual researchers are left to specify their own adaptations. Netnography is another form of online ethnography or cyber-ethnography with more specific sets of guidelines and rules, and a common multidisciplinary base of literature and scholars. This article is not about a particular neologism, but the general application of ethnographic methods to online fieldwork as practiced by anthropologists, sociologists, and other scholars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Field research</span> Collection of information outside a laboratory, library or workplace setting

Field research, field studies, or fieldwork is the collection of raw data outside a laboratory, library, or workplace setting. The approaches and methods used in field research vary across disciplines. For example, biologists who conduct field research may simply observe animals interacting with their environments, whereas social scientists conducting field research may interview or observe people in their natural environments to learn their languages, folklore, and social structures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Video ethnography</span>

Video ethnography is the video recording of the stream of activity of subjects in their natural setting, in order to experience, interpret, and represent culture and society. Ethnographic video, in contrast to ethnographic film, cannot be used independently of other ethnographic methods, but rather as part of the process of creation and representation of societal, cultural, and individual knowledge. It is commonly used in the fields of visual anthropology, visual sociology, and cultural studies. Uses of video in ethnography include the recording of certain processes and activities, visual note-taking, and ethnographic diary-keeping.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geography</span> Study of lands and inhabitants of Earth

Geography is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. The first recorded use of the word γεωγραφία was as a title of a book by Greek scholar Eratosthenes. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding of Earth and its human and natural complexities—not merely where objects are, but also how they have changed and come to be. While geography is specific to Earth, many concepts can be applied more broadly to other celestial bodies in the field of planetary science. One such concept, the first law of geography, proposed by Waldo Tobler, is "everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things." Geography has been called "the world discipline" and "the bridge between the human and the physical sciences."

Netnography, is a specific type of qualitative social media research. It adapts the methods of ethnography, is understanding social interaction in contemporary digital communications contexts. You can think of netnography as a particular set of actions for doing research within and about social media. Netnography is a specific set of research practices related to data collection, analysis, research ethics, and representation, rooted in participant observation. In netnography, a significant amount of the data originates in and manifests through the digital traces of naturally occurring public conversations recorded by contemporary communications networks. Netnography uses these conversations as data. It is an interpretive research method that adapts the traditional, in-person participant observation techniques of anthropology to the study of interactions and experiences manifesting through digital communications.

Ethnoscience has been defined as an attempt "to reconstitute what serves as science for others, their practices of looking after themselves and their bodies, their botanical knowledge, but also their forms of classification, of making connections, etc.".

Geographic information systems (GIS) play a constantly evolving role in geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) and United States national security. These technologies allow a user to efficiently manage, analyze, and produce geospatial data, to combine GEOINT with other forms of intelligence collection, and to perform highly developed analysis and visual production of geospatial data. Therefore, GIS produces up-to-date and more reliable GEOINT to reduce uncertainty for a decisionmaker. Since GIS programs are Web-enabled, a user can constantly work with a decision maker to solve their GEOINT and national security related problems from anywhere in the world. There are many types of GIS software used in GEOINT and national security, such as Google Earth, ERDAS IMAGINE, GeoNetwork opensource, and Esri ArcGIS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cartographic design</span> Process of designing maps

Cartographic design or map design is the process of crafting the appearance of a map, applying the principles of design and knowledge of how maps are used to create a map that has both aesthetic appeal and practical function. It shares this dual goal with almost all forms of design; it also shares with other design, especially graphic design, the three skill sets of artistic talent, scientific reasoning, and technology. As a discipline, it integrates design, geography, and geographic information science.

References

  1. 1 2 3 ""Ethnographic Mapping" in "Ethnography Made Simple" on Manifold Scholarship at CUNY". Manifold Scholarship. Retrieved 2020-11-01.
  2. Werner, Oswald; Kuznar, Lawrence A. (2001). "Ethnographic Mapmaking: Part 2—Practical Concerns and Triangulation". Field Methods. 13 (3): 291–296. doi: 10.1177/1525822X0101300305 . S2CID   56252954.
  3. Campbell, John (2002). "Interdisciplinary Research and GIS: Why Local and Indigenous Knowledge is Discounted". In Sillitoe, P.; Bicker, A.; Pottier, J. (eds.). Participating in Development. Approaches to Indigenous Knowledge. London: Routledge. pp. 189–205. Retrieved November 1, 2020 via ResearchGate.
  4. Brennan-Horley, Chris; Luckman, Susan (2010). "GIS, Ethnography, and Cultural Research: Putting Maps Back Into Ethnographic Mapping". The Information Society. 26 (2): 92–103. doi:10.1080/01972240903562712. S2CID   30376053 via ResearchGate.
  5. Kuznar, Lawrence A.; Werner, Oswald (2001). "Ethnographic Mapmaking: Part 1—Principles". Field Methods. 13 (2): 204–213. doi: 10.1177/1525822X0101300206 . S2CID   62161246.