When ethnography and technology meet

Why some instructors are so drawn to ethnography as a composition pedagogy has to do with the ways that this approach makes accessible certain objectives and goals of the writing classroom. In his "New Teacher's Guide to Teaching Ethnography," a document written as a support for new instructors, Seth Kahn lists six rationales for teaching ethnography to writing students: a broadened sense of textually, a heightened sense of expertise, a variety of writing tasks, a new research skill, a strengthened sense of knowledge making, and a wealth of material from which to work.

However, while understanding and examining the whys and hows of ethnographic pedagogy is indeed important, I would also like to place such an investigation in the context of composition studies at large. It seems to me that current interest in ethnography as a writing pedagogy has become possible in the larger context of two sub-fields of composition studies: critical literacy/pedagogy and computers and composition.

First, ethnographic writing as a composition pedagogy allows for a more tangible implementation of the ideals associated with critical literacy and pedagogy. As John Trimbur notes in a more recent article in CCC, "Composition and the Circulating of Writing," following our interest in student involvement in the community, in service learning and critical literacy, instructors nationwide have adapted their research papers to what he calls "mini-ethnographies." The idea is that if students are going to interview, investigate, research and deal with literacy in real-world settings, then they should also write about them. Ethnographic theory and methods provide many models of possibility for the research paper even as they allow for the exploration of ethics, one of the more important topics in human investigative research.

While there is a great deal more that could be said on the intersection between critical literacy, pedagogy and ethnography, it has been my experience that this connection is quickly understood, that this is one of the conscious reasons many turn to ethnographic writing as an approach to the classroom. However, it is my assertion that ethnographic pedagogy has also become desirable to instructors because of the ways in which technology has influenced our field. More specifically, the interests and foci of those who identify with an area known as computers and composition provide theoretical and practical guidance for ethnographic pedagogy. Concern over a variety of literacy sites, the acquisition of new literacies, the creation of cultures based upon textual communication allow those teaching ethnography as an approach to writing to investigate some of the larger theoretical issues of critical theory, even as the technologies of e-mail and the World Wide Web (as only two examples) stand as possible research sites and examples of how literacy works in our culture.

My own understanding of the benefits of ethnography as a classroom pedagogy include Kahn's, but I have mapped them with respect to the places where the interests and goals of critical pedagogy and computers and composition intersect. For me, the success of ethnography as a pedagogy lies in the ways that this sort of writing makes tangible three elements of academic discourse that works to engage, rather than arrest discussion: the difference between primary and secondary sources, self-reflexive discovery, and textual creativity.

Primary and Secondary Sources

For years I have heard instructors complain about the ways in which students conduct all their research online rather than going to the library, that they continue to present articles from Newsweek and Time, not to mention personal home pages, as sources for their research papers. OK, so students gravitate toward what they know, toward the obvious when it comes to engaging in research. For me, the issue isn't that these sources are irrelevant; it is that they aren't understood as primary documents; neither are the academic sources understood as secondary sources. Rather than students coming to engage with a variety of different sources, working with different ones in different ways, they are asked to engage in the creation of false dichotomies: determining the difference between good and bad texts, legitimate and irrelevant information.

That we should not evaluate texts and sources is not the point. We certainly should. However, I have found that students are better able to ascertain the validity of a source when they have participated in the creation of primary data. That is, understanding that a personal home page is primary, rather than secondary information--and should be treated as such--makes much more sense when students have interviewed informants, participated in chatrooms, or made other sorts of observations that become a part of their primary data, their field notes. It isn't that sources are good or bad, necessarily; it is that they require different treatment and analysis depending upon their intended audiences. Ethnographic methods, the collection of primary data, makes the analysis, consideration, and use of secondary texts--academic sources--that much more accessible to students.

Self-reflexive discovery

If it is composition's duty to prepare students for academic discourse and to introduce them to research as a means of entering scholarly conversation, then the worst possible assignments are those that ask them to report, recall, and rehash some of the more browbeaten subjects of our time: gun control, abortion, euthanasia, death penalty, legalization of marijuana, etc. This is not to say that I regard these subjects as unimportant or unworthy of our time and energy. They most certainly deserve thoughtful attention. My objection lies in the degree to which the average first-year student is able to engage with these topics from any sort of position of expertise. And, even if they can (my experience is that many students have a great deal of personal experience that speaks to the issue of gun control), the format of the standard research paper limits their discussion to what others have said, not what they know or think about the subject.

I require that students have a connection with their research topics, that they know something about them prior to taking this class. I am fully aware that this directive conflicts with most instructors' philosophies that mandate students know nothing, or very little, about their proposed research site. However, what I also know is that, to date, I have never had a student lose interest in his/her research when he/she has had a real life connection with it. In addition, it is the personal connection that allows for the level of self-reflexivity that I encourage. To be able to see and identify not only the discourses in which their informants participate, but the ways in which they reinforce or resist such discourses. Such an exploration is but initiated in a fifteen week class, but students make the initial moves that enable them to see how their own personal lives are a part of the political structure.

Textual creativity

It is at this juncture that the directives and benefits of ethnographic writing begin to dovetail most visibly with the possibilities afforded by technology in the writing classroom. As stated earlier, one of the objectives of ethnographic writing is to present a smart and engaging exploration of an idea. How we may engage the reader becomes a question of style, presentation and rhetorical strategy. Certainly, in my classes we talk about focus, about organization, and about adding to academic knowledge in one way or another.

However, I also strongly believe that if you limit students in the modes of presentation, then you limit their ability to think creatively, to think critically. The possibilities of hypertext allow students to create polyvocal, engaging texts. They allow students to use (not abuse) visual imagery, to present photos, or maps, or drawings that enable students to engage with their own research on a different level. Even if an instructor does not require the creation of a Web text as a part of an assignment, the World Wide Web provides many examples of ethnographic writings that are smart and engaging. Of course, any exploration of the web calls us back to the ideas explored above in Primary and Secondary Sources--validity of the information on a given site--but the point here is that technology allows for a broader understanding of textual creativity, in addition to a broader understanding of literacy.

Ethnography and Technology

It has taken me nearly ten years to understand why I use ethnography as a writing pedagogy, why I teach it in the classroom. It also seems to me that it'll take another ten years for me to really work on how I want to bring technology into that endeavor, despite the fact that I find the connection not only viable, but essential. But the question then becomes, as it always seems to, what of all of this actually appears on the syllabus? What becomes required for our students? Should we require the creation of web texts? Should we not? What about taking these kinds of courses online?

I have taught ethnographic writing without acknowledging technology formally; I have taught it as an online class. I have made Web texts mandatory and I have made them optional. I have had students engage in discussion boards in order to examine their communicative strategies, and I have used them merely as another place to talk. And even now, in having worked in a variety of models, in a number of institutions, at at least four different writing levels, I feel incapable of saying, "This is the one best way." And that's strange for me. Anyone that knows me knows I am a Taylorized individual; efficiency is all.

However, what I do know is that the ideas scholars and instructors bring up in discussing technology resonate with those who focus on ethnography as a writing pedagogy; they both seem to filter them through the lens of critical literacy/pedagogy. As a starting point, it seems there is a a large space (and maybe even need) for a conversation that allows us to identify how many folks teach in the computer classroom and, even if they don't introduce ethnography to their students, they think about it and are intrigued by it. Conversely, there are many who already assign the "mini-ethnography" and work to incorporate (or simply ignore) the computers in their classrooms, even though they really want to make more use of the technology.

I invite those interested in this intersection, in the ways that technology and ethnography can come together in the writing classroom, to contact me, or even to just remain open to future discussion on the subject. I am interested in seeing technology and ethnography make their way onto more and more composition syllabi. I have a feeling it's already happening. I am also intrigued by the ways in which ethnography can influence our composition theory. Whatever your interest or perspective on this intersection, I am interested in how you negotiate the two elements in your classroom, as well as in your own research and writing. Let me know what you're thinking: ahawkins@colum.edu.

Much of this site has been presented in linear prose, working in a top to bottom format through a few different links. At this point, I invite you to peruse through Multi-sited insights. This page presents a number of bits, bytes, situations and cites aimed at presenting a polyvocal, multi-sited argument illustrating some of the interesting ways ethnography and technology can serve to invigorate composition pedagogy.

In our field * When ethnography and technology meet*

My "partial truths"* Multi-sited insights * Works Cited * Home