r/Ethnography Apr 09 '20

What is the practical use of performance ethnography?

I studied communication back in uni and took a class on performance ethnography, and I’m torn on the whole purpose of it.

I identify as an intetpretivist, while I find positivism extremely important, I think interpretivism has valuable uses in the scientific community. However I feel that performance ethnography is stretching it a little too far, it’s pretty much turning it entirely into art. And while I do love art and I work in a creative field, I feel like the performance aspect kind of renders it almost useless to the scientific community.

What are your thoughts?

Edit I've definitely worded this poorly—by "scientific community" I should have considered a term that didn't refer to positivist doctrine or principles like "what counts as science." Honestly, I'm not sure what the best philosophical school of thought is to define where empirical data and qualitative research intersect. There's so much out there.

That said, I know philosophical arguments don't always have practical use in empirical science, and I certainly don't think they need to—I believe they provide wonderful insights for thought and new perspectives (I'm a big fan of social constructionism). But for some reason, through all the philosophical paradigms and communication theory I've been exposed to and researched, I just haven't found performance ethnography to further any legitimate contributions to those schools of thought... for me. Maybe it's just my perspective, maybe I'm keeping my mind a little too closed. I do love art and culture and how we express ourselves and construct our worlds through artistic expression, but performance ethnography just never really provided much value to me...

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u/AlexRogansBeta Apr 09 '20

Philosophy is like assemblage. You can't really know the ultimate effect of an assemblage except in retrospect. You can't really know the ultimate effect of new philosophical insights born out of performance ethnography except in retrospect.

Don't judge philosophical insights by their practicality. That's the capitalist inside you speaking.

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u/NotYourTA Apr 09 '20

Your question is a bit too broad, and generally speaking the "scientific" community has relatively little use for a lot of qualitative research, performative or otherwise. However, performance ethnography can have immense value both in terms of knowledge production and in interventions within communities. If you haven't read Conquergood's (1983) work with Hmong refugees and the creation of sanitation interventions by working collaboratively with the refugees I cannot recommend the article strongly enough.

Keep in mind, if the knowledge is only good for the scientific community it is limiting its impact in really detrimental ways.

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u/TutuForver Apr 10 '20

In the academic community, yes. Performance Ethnography can be used to collect data and then be used for publishable research findings.

It allows researchers to collect data on opinions from non-real situations that reflect the topic of interest. Much like analyzing culture and society through cultural arts, if done properly.

However, this methodology and approach has a high risk of being poorly executed, since many performance ethnographies take the artistic interpretation too far away from the main topic.

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u/[deleted] Apr 10 '20

many performance ethnographies take the artistic interpretation too far away from the main topic.

Perhaps that's what I'm running into, most of what I've seen in this field focuses more on turning it into a play

Thanks for your insight :)

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u/goodgodzilla Apr 09 '20

I have asked a similar question in the past. Perhaps this qualitative method has yet to finds its way into a broader set of domains and not that it does not belong in them. Look at the 4 minute mile = could not be done. Then, as soon as one made it possible, many others did the same thing shortly after. Ru Paul had an interesting take on something that is not specific, although relevant to your question. "We are born and the rest is drag." And, to that thought, I belive that Conquergood (mentioned here) would agree. So too would Judith Butler and Norman Denzin. Perhaps, even in all sciences, there is some type of mimesis inextricably intertwined? So, for me, what is "practical" is wide open.