Abstract
In Applied Ethnography, Pertti J. Pelto draws on a distinguished career in ethnographic research across the world to espouse a mixed-methods approach to data generation and analysis. His perspectives are epistemologically grounded in the tradition of realism, and express a synthesis of methodological concerns and practical data-gathering methods. The twelfth volume in the ‘Developing Qualitative Enquiry’ series, Applied Ethnography focuses in particular on community, health and education research in developing countries.
The book is structured into nineteen short chapters. The initial two chapters set out the epistemological and methodological positions described above. The following three chapters walk us through the research process, following the traditional format for a research methods manual. Sections are thus devoted to gaining entry, ethics, mapping the location (both geographically and socially), selecting participants, and capturing and managing data. Theoretical and methodological issues are illustrated by detailed examples from research projects in a range of countries. These are visually represented in a series of pencil drawings of researchers ‘in action’. It is questionable whether these drawings support his exhortations for scientific rigour in ethnography, and their ‘rustic’ quality in some ways evoke early Western anthropological explorations in ‘exotic’, far-flung climates. However the examples of research studies, peppered liberally throughout each chapter, are described in vivid and illuminating detail. They are heavily focused on health and education projects, and in most cases have a community development imperative. For example, Pelto divides the types of key informants researchers may encounter into ‘officials’, ‘street-wise outreach workers’ and the study population, adding religious leaders and agricultural specialists as additional examples.
In the middle section of the book, each chapter addresses a particular qualitative method, such as participant observation, in-depth interviewing, free-listing and pile sorting. Pelto suggests that contemporary ethnography has less space for traditional anthropological participant observation, being replaced by imperatives for ‘rapid assessment’ and ‘rural appraisal’ drawing on local knowledge. He argues that these are driven by governmental or NGO (non-governmental organisation) funding, or by the need for ‘practical useful information’ for large international bodies such as the World Health Organisation. The methods he describes therefore tend towards short-term intensive data collection. After discussing qualitative data analysis in chapter twelve, the following chapters are devoted to specialised ethnographic tools which can produce quantitative data on behaviours and events, though the use of structured or timed observations, hypothetical scenarios and diaries. In the final chapters, Pelto discusses research guidelines and teams, again demonstrating his global, developmental perspective, before concluding with chapters devoted to writing, and the history and future of applied ethnography.
Written for researchers working globally in community development, this weighty tome thus explores the methodological framework and ‘tools of the trade’ of those engaged in applied programmes in some depth. Applied Ethnography would not be a suitable starting point for the inexperienced researcher, who may be better placed reading one of the many ‘how to’ books devoted to ethnography. However, as an in-depth guide for advanced researchers engaged in large-scale ethnographic research in developing countries, Applied Ethnography is detailed, thoughtful and invaluable.