Richardson,L. (2000). Evaluating ethnography. Qualitative Inquiry, 6(2), 253-255
Ethnographies, it would seem, are tricky things to evaluate. The following is a list of five criteria found on Wikipedia, quoted from a Richardson paper from 2000:
Ethnographic methodology is not usually evaluated in terms of philosophical standpoint (such as positivism and emotionalism), ethnographies nonetheless need to be evaluated in some manner. While there is no consensus on evaluation standards, Richardson (2000, p. 254) [7] provides 5 criteria that ethnographers might find helpful. They include:
1. Substantive Contribution: “Does the piece contribute to our understanding of social-life?”
2. Aesthetic Merit: “Does this piece succeed aesthetically?”
3. Reflexivity: “How did the author come to write this text…Is there adequate self-awareness and self-exposure for the reader to make judgments about the point of view?”
4. Impact: “Does this affect me? Emotionally? Intellectually?” Does it move me?
5. Expresses a Reality: “Does it seem ‘true’—a credible account of a cultural, social, individual, or communal sense of the ‘real’?”
So, what do folks think? Are these good criteria for evaluating our own ethnographies as we work on them?
I like it, it sounds terribly unscientific which is probably why it appeals – reminds me of William Morris “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”. Beautiful and useful – you can’t go wrong with criteria like that really.
I like it too. Richardson is great on validity issues in qualitative research, and approaches which take account of the aesthetic. A couple of references below – Damien I guess your quote is from the second one?
Richardson, L. (2000a). ‘Writing: a method of inquiry’. Handbook of qualitative research. N. K. Denzin and Y. S. LincolnThousand Oaks, CA, Sage: 923-939.
Richardson, L. (2000b). ‘Evaluating ethnography.’ Qualitative Inquiry 6(2): 253-255.
I swiped it from Wikipedia Sian.
I like it and can see my self applying all but no. 2 – aesthetic merit. I’m still very much stuck on ethnographies being textual, rather than visual. I like the idea of representing an ethnography on a timeline, but I haven’t got a clue where to start.
I like those criteria. There is something quite unscientific about them but everything I’ve read over the last few weeks seems to come from a perspective of saying “here is the right way to do this… ” or “here is the established way to do this…” as a precursor to saying “… and here’s why that is so subjective and outdated it is irrelevant”.
The history of science has some great stuff about checking validity and how you might decide that something is an accurate finding. Impericism looks great – you test all your theories for validity – but can fall down since you only test your theory, not what you actually encounter, and you come in with a lot of baggage around what you expect to happen.
Given that ethnography shares some of those issues – and a whole lot more around ethics and social/self-concious role of observer – I think Richardson’s criteria seem pretty fair pointers. And really quite helpful for me to have in mind as I work out how to present and share my own experiences of a digital community.
Yes, I also think these are very helpful comments. I liked number 4: Does this impact me? Does it move me? – This is a criteria which is often neglected in scientific research!
[...] so far and get it all down. One of my most recent activities this week in fact was commenting on Damian’s post about evaluating an ethnography – I found the criteria he shared (from Richardson 2000) super useful so will be thinking [...]
Thanks Damien for this. I’ve been pondering exactly this question myself and considering which criteria best suits and is not too scientific as Tracy mentioned below