 Before we actually get down to doing ethnography, we need to understand the process and its underlying principles so that we can do justice to our research. Let's start with process. There are four parts to it. Engaging with our participants, recording and documenting our observations, understanding and analyzing what we have learned and representing the knowledge we have derived. While these may appear to be mutually exclusive steps of the process, this is not the case. Ethnographic research is not a linear process constituted of steps and procedures, which is why we would like to refer to these as the elements that form ethnographic practice. This will become clearer as we look at each of these elements in more detail. Let's begin with discussing the first element, the process of engaging with our participants. In ethnography, we learn from our participants by engaging with them in their context by which I mean their surroundings, their familiar places. Can you think and write down what are the possible ways by which we may engage and learn from our participants? Many of you may have guessed that observing and interviewing are ways of engaging in ethnographic research. Some of you may have mentioned archived documents and records as sources from which ethnographers may learn. These answers are correct and relevant. But besides these, there are several other ways like making interactive games, collaborating on projects and so on. But for now, we will focus on the most primary one, which is observation. Observation is not as simple as it may seem because observation is not the same as casual seeing. To observe means to look at the world around us very carefully and to be alert at every moment. It is an active way of learning and understanding. To observe is to look carefully with attention and to apply thought, meaning and empathy. We observe people and their activities, everyday rituals, special occasions, interactions between people. We also look at objects and physical environments that form the context. Architecture, landscape, objects of everyday use, documents such as diaries, photographs or papers that our participants may have. All of these add to our understanding of their lives. And we don't always limit our observations to watching from a distance. Often we join in and participate in the daily lives and activities of participants. This form of engagement is called participant observation. In addition to observing and participating, we also have conversations with participants and even interview them. Through these conversations, we try to understand the phenomenon from their perspectives. Be it observing, participating or interviewing, the setting of our engagements is always the context of the participant. It could be their home or workplace or any other place that is familiar to them. Let's pause the video here and consider a research scenario. Researchers want to study a school to understand how teachers, students and other stakeholders of the institution feel about it. Towards this, they consider three different ways of engaging. Option one, spending time with students and teachers during classes. Option two, acting as teachers' assistants in class. Option three, speaking to teachers, students and school administrators. Can you identify the forms of engagement in each of these options? Many of you may have identified the third option as interviewing. You are correct. Is any of these options participant observation? Recall that in participant observation, a researcher participates in the activities that form the life and context of the other. This is what the researchers are doing in option two. They participate in the everyday activities of the classroom. So option two may be considered as participant observation. Option one is observation. Here the researchers are not participating in the class activities, but they are observing them from the outside. These three forms of engagement are among the most basic tools that are used in primary research. Primary research is where we engage directly with participants in their familiar environments. So fieldwork of almost any kind is primary research. As we mentioned earlier, we may also engage with records created by our participants. This too is a form of doing primary research. Besides this, we learn from existing sources of knowledge, which we have referred to as secondary research. Secondary research could include previous studies that have dealt with similar subjects. All of these contribute to our exploration of the subject and form the raw material of our research. We will discuss each of these forms and approaches to research in much greater detail as we journey along. For now, let's move ahead to the next element of the ethnographic process, which is recording. How do we make our observations concrete and make them available to us for later reflection? That is where recording comes in. We record our observations by taking notes, recording audio or by making sketches, photographs or videos of all that we are observing or being told about. Our records are documents of our observations. There are also notes of our experiences, perceptions and thoughts from fieldwork. For us, recording is not simply an act of note taking. It is also a way to interpret or think through our learnings. Take for example these notes I had made during my fieldwork with the coward storytellers. I had made detailed notes of the events that were taking place, even the most minute ones. But I have also made notes of what I was thinking as I was observing these events. So as I was observing, I was interpreting my observations. This act of interpreting is the next element of our ethnographic process. To derive meaning from an observation, we often look at it from different points of view. We take into account the perspective of different participants and their positions in the context. This is called the emic perspective. And when we include in it our own perspective and our position with respect to our participants. This we refer to as etic perspective. In interpreting our learnings and observations, we bring together both. And we try to ensure that we do not place our perspective before that of our participants. For those of you who are interested in learning more about the etic and emic perspectives in ethnographic research, we have some material for you. And there is a quiz that you can take to revise and test your knowledge on the subject. As we interpret and analyze our engagements, we may also turn to other studies or research done in the past to provide frameworks that may inform our ways of seeing. It is important to remember though that observing, recording and understanding the observations are not really considered separate from one another. They are not step one, two, three. Instead, they are parts of a single iterative process going back and forth or around each other. Finally, we attempt to put together the seemingly scattered pieces of observations we have made and the connections we have drawn into a cohesive whole. This collation is essential for understanding the phenomena we are studying and the social and cultural structures within which it is located. And in doing this, we work towards presenting the outcome of our ethnographic research. That is the ethnographic knowledge we have constructed. And therefore, representing our research is also a way of analyzing it. To illustrate what I mean, I would like to introduce you to one of my works, The Animated Film, The Stitcher's Peak. The film is an ethnographic representation depicting my research with the embroidery artists of Kutch. These women embroidered elaborate tapestries depicting their journeys of migration and the earthquake. Some of these migrations occurred across the border from Pakistan into India. I had to tell my father that I will be asking for help from India. I told him that I will not be able to go to any of the villages in India, but I will be going to Pakistan instead. I told him that I will have to go to Kutch to create a kutch. I have come to Kutch and I have been working here for 10 years. In this clip, we heard the voice of my participant Rani Ben, describing the long journey of migration that she and her community made across the border from Pakistan into India. The clip is composed of a spoken narrative, the embroidered images that she created depicting this migration and also based on my understanding of the subject gathered from multiple participants and sources. The making of the film was an attempt at representing these pieces of knowledge and it was in putting them all together that I started to see the themes that emerged from my engagement with Rani Ben and her fellow artists. The ideas of home, loss of home, migration and memories that defined the lives of my participant became tangible in the representation that I constructed. And so the film is both representation and analysis of my engagements with the artists. I am sure you are still wondering how is ethnography both a process and an outcome or what makes the work ethnographic in nature. Why don't you reflect on this for a bit and we will come back to you soon.