Ethnography: challenges and opportunities

Introduction

Collectively qualitative research is a group of methodologies, with each approach offering a different lens though which to explore, understand, interpret or explain phenomena in real word contexts and settings. This article will provide an overview of one of the many qualitative approaches, ethnography, and its relevance to healthcare. We will use an exemplar based on a study that used participant-as-observer observation and follow-up interviews to explore how occupational therapists embed spirituality into everyday practice, and offer insights into the future directions of ethnography in response to increased globalisation and technological advances.

What is ethnography?

Qualitative research methodologies are inductive and focus on meaning; approaches are diverse with different purposes, reflecting differing ontological and epistemological underpinnings.1 With roots in sociology and anthropology, ethnography is one of the early qualitative approaches and is concerned with learning about people, in contrast to studying people, through immersion in native populations.

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