ETHNOGRAPHY...

The term ethnography has come to be equated with virtually any qualitative research project (e.g., see Research Gateway) where the intent is to provide a detailed, in-depth description of everyday life and practice. This is sometimes referred to as "thick description" -- a term attributed to the anthropologist Clifford Geertz writing on the idea of an interpretive theory of culture in the early 1970s (e.g., see The Interpretation of Cultures, first published as a collection in 1973).  The use of the term "qualitative" is meant to distinguish this kind of social science research from more "quantitative" or statistically oriented research. The two approaches, i.e., quantitative and qualitative, while often complimentary, ultimately have different aims.

While an ethnographic approach to social research is no longer purely that of the cultural anthropologist, a more precise definition must be rooted in ethnography's disciplinary home of anthropology. Thus, ethnography may be defined as both a qualitative research process or method (one conducts an ethnography) and product (the outcome of this process is an ethnography) whose aim is cultural interpretation. The ethnographer goes beyond reporting events and details of experience.  Specifically, he or see attempts to explain how these represent what we might call "webs of meaning" (Geertz again), the cultural constructions, in which we live.

Ethnographers generate understandings of culture through representation of what we call an emic perspective, or what might be described as the "'insider's point of view." The emphasis in this representation is thus on allowing critical categories and meanings to emerge from the ethnographic encounter rather than imposing these from existing models.  An etic perspective, by contrast, refers to a more distant, analytical orientation to experience.

Originating in anthropology, this term traditionally refers to a practice in which researchers spend long periods living within a culture in order to study it. The term has been adopted within qualitative market research to describe occasions where researchers spend time - hours, days or weeks - observing and/or interacting with participants in areas of their everyday lives. This contrasts with interview-based research in which interaction with respondents is limited to a conventional interview or group discussion format, is more limited in time, and often takes place outside the participant's own environment

Advantages

• One of the more widely cited benefits of conducting ethnographic research is that due to the first-hand observation that is involved, usually conducted over an extended period of time, the research can provide extensive and in-depth findings about human behavior. In addition, because ethnographic research relies on observation rather than examinations or predetermined tests, the research can evolve and explore new lines of inquiry.

Disadvantages

• Due to the fact that ethnographic research relies on observation, it often takes a longer period of time to produce thorough and reliable results. Also, because the research is reliant upon the observations of just one or a few people, the conclusions about what the human subjects were doing, saying or feeling could be altered by the observers' cultural bias or ignorance.

Link http://www.aqr.org.uk/glossary/?term=ethnography