Thinking Through Methods by John Levi Martin

Author:John Levi Martin [Martin, John Levi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sociology
ISBN: 9780226431727
Google: rZUtDwAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 31146673
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2017-02-08T00:00:00+00:00

Getting In

Now that we aren’t fetishizing the process of “getting in” to the group, let’s take a look at it in practical terms. This is going to sound very presumptuous, but it’s a bit of advice that will help you for a few of these issues (though, sadly, not all): don’t listen to ethnographers. Listen to me. Why? Because some parts of ethnography are very personal, in the sense that they make use of each person’s particular profile of personality, skills, history, and knowledge; they also depend heavily on the target community; and they also involve a lot of luck. And a fair number of ethnographers only do one real cold entry in their whole careers. Yet some (not all, and, it seems to me, fewer as time passes) insist that what worked for them is the only way to do it. If you are talking to someone who met his gangs via a broker and long negotiations, and you explain, say, that you simply started hanging out with some of the Gangster Disciples, and it worked out naturally, he’ll stare as he tries to decide whether you are lying or just insane. But in talking to someone who had made a different entry, if you say you are using an Operation CeaseFire activist as a broker, she’ll be convinced you can’t be doing a real ethnography. And so on. I’m not saying that you should ignore what they have to say. But you do need to bear in mind (1) selectivity and (2) subjectivity. (A thousand people can have tried this person’s pet technique, and 999 times it led to disaster, but guess why those folks aren’t talking to you about it? Because they work at Starbucks.)

I think if you’re looking for some things that are common to great ethnographers and successful ethnographies, you are going to find only a few. Let’s take a classic example, the story of William Whyte ([1943] 1981, 288–89), who knew he wanted to study a slum. But how to get access? His first try was by helping conduct an official survey on housing conditions. That didn’t work. His second try was just to walk up to people in a bar and ask if he could join them. They threatened to throw him down the stairs. His third try was through the settlement house, and this only succeeded because one worker introduced him to Doc, the leader of an informal gang.

But was it really only luck that got Whyte to Doc? In a way, yes, but after all, this was Whyte’s third try. Most people would have given up before that. More than any other thing, this sort of tenacity is what you need to be a serious ethnographer. A capacity to resist discouragement, to respond to rejection with a new attempt, to always dust yourself off.

What is it that gives workers this tenacity? Some field-workers don’t really feel as if they fit in with anyone in particular, so they’re equally happy with everyone. Some are really desperate and have no choice but to go forward.

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