ABSTRACT

Ethnography has flourished in small pockets of psychological researchers but is not widely embraced in psychology. Increased calls for qualitative methods have taken place recently in psychology, and at times ethnography is grouped into this without proper attention to the epistemological stance and approach of ethnographic research. Our purpose was to illuminate the use of ethnography in psychological research. We used a grounded theory approach to individually interview researchers (N = 14) who use ethnography, ethnographically informed methods, or auto-ethnography across subdisciplines. Analyses led to the identification of seven categories:

● doing ethnography in psychological research;

● training or a lack thereof;

● positioning oneself as a researcher between fields;

● centering self, site, and context;

● a different model of causality;

● what psychologists need to know to embrace ethnography: unsaid and unwritten rules; and

● writing ethnography: juggling legitimacy, rigor, and publication rates.

Results identify the value of integrating ethnography as a means of knowing into psychological science. We discuss this with respect to value of ethnography for furthering cultural exploration in psychology and comment on training environments for ethnography in psychology.

摘要

民族志在少数心理学研究人员中蓬勃发展，但并未被心理学广泛接受。最近在心理学中越来越多地呼吁定性方法，有时民族志被归入其中，而没有适当注意民族志研究的认识论立场和方法。我们的目的是阐明人种学在心理学研究中的应用。我们使用扎根理论方法单独采访使用民族志、民族志知识方法或跨学科自我民族志的研究人员 ( N = 14)。分析导致识别七个类别：

● 在心理学研究中进行民族志研究；

● 培训或缺乏培训；

● 将自己定位为跨领域的研究人员；

● 以自我、地点和环境为中心；

● 不同的因果关系模型；

● 心理学家在接受民族志时需要知道什么：未说和不成文的规则；和

● 写作民族志：兼顾合法性、严谨性和出版率。

结果确定了将民族志作为一种了解心理科学的手段的价值。我们讨论了民族志对促进心理学文化探索的价值，并评论了心理学民族志的培训环境。