ReferenceAuthor: Jennifer A. Rode
Affiliation: iSchool, Drexel University,3141 Chestnut St. Philadelphia PA, 19104
Presentation: CHI 2011, May 7–12, 2011, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Summary
Hypothesis
The paper overviews key aspects of use and contribution of digital anthropology in HCI, as well as in the anthropological approach. It relates these practices to participatory design and the socio-technical gap, and the ways ethnography can address them.
Contents /Methods
The paper illustrates how Anthropological Ethnographic’s reflexivity contributes to design and theory in HCI. First, It describes three forms of anthropological writing. Second, It explains key elements of those technique. Finally, It discusses where ethnography is used in the design process in CHI so that It can highlight how Digital (Anthropological) Ethnography can contribute.
The paper discusses the following three methods of anthropology commonly used in HCI.
Realist :The realist account strives for the authenticity of representation.The ethnographer does not make inferences, but rather repeatedly creates and tests hypothesis in context and attempts to clearly represent the native’s point of view.It does not promote dialog nor allow presentation of findings that are out of context.
Confessional:The confessional ethnography provides a means of directly addressing the inherent subjectivity of ethnographic practice, by giving the ethnographer a voice and by refusing to black-box ethnographic practice. Its not that popular in HCI given ethnographers are already defensive about claims of the subjectivity of their method use to avoid opening their work to further scrutiny.
Impressionistic: Impressionist ethnographic traditions are what are being drawn on in the HCI literature when studies report proactive findings letting the narrative speak for itself.
Discussing Rapport: It ensures mutual understanding and trust which will in turn facilitate the ethnographic encounter. Rapport facilitates access, not only physically reaching participants, but also getting them to open up and share their stories.
Participant Observation: The anthropologist learns through firsthand experience, the rules of interaction and acceptable behavior. Hypotheses then are tested not through external validation, but rather through embodied experiences.In HCI people are discussed as the objects of study, rather than embodied experiences in the context of personal relationships.
Results
The three different forms of ethnography;formative, summative, and iteratively evaluative negotiate the socio-technical gap differently, by aiming to close it, understand it, or perhaps a little of both. These forms of ethnography offer exciting possibilities for how to explore the “messy bits” of the socio-technical gap, and relate it to design, if we can embrace the challenge of integrating the writing forms into discussion of design process.
Discussion
The paper has a lot to offer for people who deal with human subjects in their research. I think it is wonderful paper to read for the beginners who want to have more insight into ethnography principles and practices. There are cases and context as well which the experienced researchers want to use to make ethnography more integrated into HCI. It was source of lot of information which I was not aware of before while I was doing my ethnography as well when I was doing my research and user testing.
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