Abstract
In the previous chapter we elaborated a range of practical issues involved in doing fieldwork and the assembly of an ethnographic record that documents and elaborates the practical sociology at work within a setting. What we want to consider here is how you might then go about producing analytic accounts of the intersubjective or social organisation of a setting’s work. In short, how do you analyse the ‘data’ contained in the ethnographic record and make it visible to others how the work of a setting is assembled as a naturally accountable matter by and for the parties to it? Below we consider the nature and role of data in ethnographic analysis, the purpose of analysis, some analytic practices you should avoid, and others that are essential to elaborating the accountable organisation of a setting’s work and conveying it to designers.
Notice that in each case there is a thinnest description of what the person is doing, e.g., penciling a line or dot on paper, and that this thinnest description requires a thickening, often a multiple thickening, of a perfectly specific kind before it amounts to an account of what the person is trying to accomplish, e.g., design a new rigging for his yacht.
Gilbert Ryle
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Crabtree, A., Rouncefield, M., Tolmie, P. (2012). Analysing the Ethnographic Record. In: Doing Design Ethnography. Human–Computer Interaction Series. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-2726-0_7
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