“Ethnography” and “Social Science” have always had an awkward relationship. As

far as research practice goes, ethnographers often feel that they have more in

common with investigative reporters,

historians, and intelligence analysts

than they do with colleagues in sociology

and economics. The usual social research

chant of “theory/hypothesis/measurement/

sampling design/significance

level” does not describe much of what

ethnographers do.

For an ethnographer, what’s interesting is the discovery of connections. A holistic

perspective is foundational for anthropology, sort of a proto-systems theory, which

helps explain why two anthropologists, Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, participated

in the post-World War II conference that founded cybernetics.

It’s not that ordinary social science isn’t allowed to look for connections. It’s that

ordinary social science begins with variables already given by some theory, and then

tries to figure out how to locate, decontextualize, and measure those variables. A

card-carrying holist notices a “variable” in a situation, maybe one that he/she had

never thought about before, but then he/she wonders what other things it might be

connected with, in that situation and outside of it. The goal is to build patterns of

many interacting things that include what was noticed, not to isolate what one was

supposed to notice and measure it.

“Ethnography” and “Social Science” have always had an awkward relationship. As far as research practice goes, ethnographers often feel that they have more in common with investigative reporters, historians, and intelligence analysts than they do with colleagues in sociology and economics. The usual social research chant of “theory/hypothesis/measurement/sampling design/significance level” does not describe much of what ethnographers do. For an ethnographer, what’s interesting is the discovery of connections. A holistic perspective is foundational for anthropology, sort of a proto-systems theory, which helps explain why two anthropologists, Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, participated in the post-World War II conference that founded cybernetics. It’s not that ordinary social science isn’t allowed to look for connections. It’s that ordinary social science begins with variables already given by some theory, and then tries to figure out how to locate, decontextualize, and measure those variables. A card-carrying holist notices a “variable” in a situation, maybe one that he/she had never thought about before, but then he/she wonders what other things it might be connected with, in that situation and outside of it. The goal is to build patterns of many interacting things that include what was noticed, not to isolate what one was supposed to notice and measure it.