 In this video we are going to discuss ethnography. Ethnography is a research methodology. A methodology can be understood as a system of methods underpinned by a particular view of the world. The term methodology can also be applied to the study of how we research, in doing so understanding that how we research something effectively changes the result of what we research. Ethnography as a methodology aims to study the way people interact and communicate within certain contexts. Ethnography can be conducted using a variety of research methods that include participant observation, field notes, interviews, surveys or analysing historical documents from the context in question. Ethnography emerged from the discipline of anthropology but spread into other academic disciplines such as communications and cultural studies, sociology, linguistics and many more. As such it is often coupled with or grounded in the theoretical approaches of each discipline. For example one might conduct an ethnography of popular music fans to understand concert behaviour within a particular subculture then couple the results with the theory informed by Pierre Bourdieu's cultural capital as just one example. Originally in anthropological research ethnography required intensive field work in local communities, usually of non-western cultures in order to gain deeper insight into social processes. At its core however ethnography seeks to interpret lived experience as observed by the researcher. One of the major concepts in ethnography is paying attention to how people describe their lived experience in order to interpret these meanings and gain understanding yet not just any descriptions will do. According to Clifford Geertz ethnography is concerned with thick descriptions or the uncovering of the multiplicity of experience as opposed to more quantitative yet ultimately superficial accounts of a community or context. Lastly a methodology can be directed by the researcher's understanding of the nature of reality itself or what we might call a paradigm. For example scientific methodologies are usually informed by the positivist paradigm that is an understanding that knowledge must be based on what we can observe, measure and quantify. At the other end of the spectrum is a paradigm such as constructionism which holds that our realities may appear to be natural and fixed when in fact they are only constructed by social and cultural interactions. In any case a researcher must have a systematic way of collating their findings so that they can share those findings with others in the academic community in a way that makes sense and in a way that others can follow. Moreover a researcher must also understand that the paradigm of their inquiry will dictate what kind of findings may emerge. Thank you for watching.