What is ethnography
Ethnography is a study section of anthropology that focuses on studying individual cultures by exploring cultural observations from an academic perspective. Additionally, ethnography examines community members’ behavior to understand their interpretation of their behavior from a cultural viewpoint. In brief, the researcher conducting ethnography shifts to live with the community he/she intends to study and collects interpretations of their behavior from their points of view. Therefore, as a scientific method, ethnography relies on observing the participants; the researcher plays a marginal role in the community he/she seeks to study and document the patterns of social relations in detail. Furthermore, ethnographers apply qualitative methods to observe the holistic study. The ethnographic document contains a brief history of the people, an analysis of the terrain, insight into the climate, and the people’s habitat (Matera & Biscaldi, 2020, p. 67).
How it is used as a method of understanding human experiences of health, illnesses, and healing
Researchers explore a community’s understanding of health, illnesses, and healing by applying ethnography as a medical sociology study method. Ethnography can be applied to access the community’s beliefs and traditions, allowing them to be in the context of occurrence and understand the behavior of the existing health issues. Therefore, ethnography is valuable as the medical practitioner understands the patients’ views on the experience of the illnesses. For example, the effectiveness of therapeutic recommendation relies on the cultural practices; therefore, a professional approach towards therapy will not work until the doctor comprehends the impeding elements of the practice within the community. Additionally, ethnography can be a way to understand the structure of a healthcare organization. For instance, data management in national hospital service is chaotic; a researcher could apply ethnographic methods to unearth the underlying issues leading to disorganized data in the system (Enria, 2021, pp. 1-22).
How ethnography used in Being Alive Well
The researcher studied the village of Whapmagoostu, North Montreal, Quebec, at the edge of the Great River. The document contains a short history of the village dating back to the 1600s until the mid-1700s when the whaling industry gained popularity in the parts. Additionally, the document describes the terrain of the village at Taiga region in the Canadian boreal forest, sitting at the northern edge of the river. Furthermore, the author describes the people’s habitat- how it was as a village compared to how it has transformed with modern houses and a new government office. The author also describes how the village is geographically isolated, as it can be accessed only by air or watercraft. There are no roads in the northern part of Quebec; therefore, the villagers rely on a single daily plane for transportation, receiving mail, and groceries. Therefore, the author uses the elements of ethnographic documentation to put together Being Alive Well (Adelson, 1998, pp. 5-22).
Ethnographic Component of the Being Alive Well Issue
The issue in Being Alive Well was that the Cree people perceived all the misfortunes in their society as being because the Whiteman came and took adulterated their culture. The people find that every disease, conflict, and technology results from Whiteman’s impurity. Additionally, the society is currently divided its operations into Cree vs. non-Cree‑ the outcome of each product in the society undergoes a prejudgment of whether it will be harmful (if it is non-Cree) or helpful (if it is Cree). Therefore, the ethnographic component identified in the Being Alive Well is that health is an integral part of the community’s cultural practices and that the Whiteman came to interrupt the cultural ecosystem (Adelson, 1998, pp. 5-22).
Possible intervention around the issue
Understanding the issue now helps understand that medical interventions in the village will be effective when presented to the people in a pro-Cree format. For example, inculcating modern medicine into the Cree society should include prescribing modern medicine, which should come from indigenous bushes and food. Furthermore, it would be imperative to educate the community’s medical doctors who understand the cultural issues around health; so, therefore, they can navigate the health issue (Matera & Biscaldi, 2020, p. 78).
What would it look like
The intervention would involve extensive research to explore how modern medicine could be inculcated into the bush life that the Cree people adored and continue to adore their indigenous way of being. The ethnographic research method available in the space will require going back to develop Alderson’s (1998, pp. 5-22) paper about the Cree community. However, the new research would be about getting a sense of the attitudes of the recommendation to develop modern medicine from their bushland and hunting culture.
What Knowledge to gather to tailor the intervention effectively?
The Knowledge to gather would be all that the Cree people called indigenous and find out if it had any medicinal value. Going back to traditional medicine and reinventing it to be part of modern medicine would also involve massive scientific Knowledge on the development of medicine. However, setting up a medical facility for research in the village would go a long way to indicate the relationship between medicine and Cree cultural practices. Also, training locals instead of importing international scientists will help avoid the Whiteman intrusion mentality, which would impede the intervention (Boeri & Shukla, 2019, p. 56).
Whom to talk to and what kind of information to collect
Talk to the older adults in the Cree community who have a better link to the Knowledge of traditional medicine than the younger generation. The researcher would collect qualitative information from the Cree people on what kinds of medicine they would accept as pro-Cree through the ethnography method of data collection. Also, it would be helpful to discuss with the Cree medical professionals the intention of the intervention to get a view of whether the intervention would be successful (Adelson, 1998, pp. 5-22).
Ethnography in public health and social science research complements case studies and systematic reviews. In the intention to intervene on the Cree health issue outlined in Being Alive Well, the researcher would use the article as a case study to justify the intervention. A case study is a detailed evaluation of the occurrence of events for a time; therefore, using Alderson’s (1998, pp. 5-22) article would be a starting point for the study. However, to gather the objectives of the intervention and for documentation, a systematic review of the Cree culture would reveal more information regarding the relationship between culture and the health of the Cree people. As a result, before setting up camp in Whapmagoostu village, which is the ethnographic method of study, the researcher will have interacted with the case study and systematic review methods to develop an effective intervention procedure. Therefore, the ethnographic research method complements case study and systematic review methods in public health and social scientific research (Yoeli & Dhital, 2022, pp. 1-17).
References
Adelson, N. (1998). Health beliefs and the politics of Cree well-being. Health, 5-22.
Boeri, M., & Shukla, R. K. (2019). Inside Ethnography: Researchers Reflect on the Challenges of Reaching Hidden Populations. California: Univ of California Press.
Enria, L. (2021). Bringing the social into vaccination research: Community-led ethnography and trust-building in immunization programs in Sierra Leone. Plos One, 1-22.
Matera, V., & Biscaldi, A. (2020). Ethnography: A Theoretically Oriented Practice. New York: Springer Nature.
Yoeli, H., & Dhital, R. (2022). A meta-ethnography of participatory health research and co-production in Nepal. Social Science and Medicine, 1-17.
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