Continuation of blog entry and starting at page 98.
Agar talks about methods of ethnography being heavily influenced by the socialization history of every individual ethnographer. All aspects of method including what one sees, what one hears, what one records as notable or important as well as the direction of interpretation are all affected by the personal history and personality of the ethnographer. This is the real reason why “true objectivity” is impossible. As I have mentioned before, the way to get around this in order to achieve conclusions that are closest to the truth as well as gain the trust of the reader is to openly admit biases thereby explaining how an interpretation was reached. I see this as the only proper way to conduct research and write an ethnography…..with as much truth as possible about not only the “other” but of the ethnographer him/herself.
Agar says that using more than one ethnographer can be useful as well. I wonder if that might at times confuse interpretation? Although, obviously this gives the ethnographer more than one, proving to the reader that so much of what we perceive as the truth is merely interpretation.
Agar talks about the holistic perspective of ethnography and that is when you take an “individual observation” that “cannot be understood unless you understand its relationships to other aspects of the situation in which it occurred”.(p.125). He believes that these relationships should be checked and validated and that the ethnographer should never cut corners. In my opinion, if the ethnographer can do this and always keep this in his/her mind, then the thought process as well as the interpretation process is more in depth and as “accurate” as well. This methodological training can also work to eliminate the usage of biases for interpretation.
To sum up Michael Agar’s message regarding method in anthropology: “…I am concerned with the development of a more explicit ethnographic methodology; on the other hand, things like the learning role, the long-term intensive personal involvement, and the holistic perspective are what set ethnography apart-they enable us to learn what people are like rather than seeing if a minute piece of their behavior in a context we define supports or does not support our ideas of what they are like”.(p.126).
In chapter 5, Agar discusses the importance of methodology. He believes that methodology "...serves some purpose, some high-order goal. ...What we need, then, is a sense of our goals-just what are we trying to accomplish when we do ethnography? Only then can we properly evaluate specific methodologies. After we use a method, we should be closer to the goal than before we used it".(p.127). I think this says a lot regarding the absolute importance of not just singularly choosing a method, or just a goal, but to see the importance of the proper method to obtain just what you want the final ethnography to accomplish. What this also means is that method seeks to equate the view and interpretations of the ethnographer with that of the native group. It seems so simple when put like that but as we all know, there are so many methods one could use. They seem to all differ. So now, what do we do when there are differing opinions within the native group? Yikes. Agar sees this as a possible positive occurrence because it can strengthen the goal of the ethnographer. I think that what he means is that it can strengthen it because the ethnographer then puts much more thought into each opinion and interpretation and maybe this can lead him/her to find a mean? Not sure if that's the right way to put it, or if the word mean is the proper term, but I basically mean that the ethnographer in this case will not just settle on one account, opinion or interpretation, and that differences of opinion will force more of a thought process to attempt at finding the "truth". Then this leads us to what he talks about on p.130, and that is, what role is the ethnographer supposed to take on as a method? Is it supposed to be just that of the observer or is there supposed to be participation as well? I think that there have been many heated conversations between anthropologist regarding this subject. I think that it must depend on the research and research group. What if its really dangerous? On second thought, I think that that might be kind of fun, but still some people might not want to put themselves in danger. How about a little bit of both? If the ethnographer just observes then he/she might truly miss out on some awakening interpretation that could only be gotten through participation.
Agar says that methods seek to accomplish this: "They should add to the procedures used by the ethnographer to transfer observations into accounts that group members say are possible interpretations of what is going on".(p.131). Makes sense to me. Makes really good sense.
An important point that all of the authors of these books have made is that the creation of a good line of questioning is an essential method for steering the conversations between you and the local in a direction where you will learn the most amount of information. I imagine that this is another thing that takes time and practice. He says that asking questions that enable the ethnographer to get '"experience near' concepts".(p.139). In other words the line of questioning gets the ethnographer as close to finding out what the local thinks of a particular aspect of his/her culture. This is done by "baiting".(p.142). This is a way of gearing the question to get closer to what the ethnographer wants to find out in the shortest amount of time possible. Agar goes into a lot of linguistic concepts that I am not familiar with. I am sure that they have relevance to him and might even to me in the future but right now, I am sticking to the basics.
Next we get into repetition of ideas, thoughts and interpretations which I imagine is where statistics come in somewhat. Repetition is a way in which the ethnography can see some sort of "popular thought", if you will, that helps he/she arrive at an average. The statistics side of all this also includes a sampling of people to gather this kind of average as well. On the subject of sampling, however, it is hard to figure out the entire populations views and such with just one ethnographer: "You are, after all, only one ethnographer, and it is hardly your fault that dozens of variables are relevant to the issue".
As I have said before, Agar does not believe in the importance of field notes. I cannot at this stage of the game imagine how that is possible without a photographic memory and a lot of confidence. I don't thus far see them as anything but useful. I can see how they might be a little distracting because the ethnographer might get caught up writing too much of something that ultimately has not relevance but I know for a fact that they will be useful to me for many things.

There is one side note that I am going to just point out and maybe come back to later. It really is not a point, though, it is a thought. Agar discusses this a bit on page 234. What if your ethnography upsets people? What if the locals of the said group like it and believe in it, but your institution does not? Or even possibly the leader of the said group? When you believe in it....do you ignore the possible political nature of the ethnography? Or what if your subject was influenced by a political situation or agenda of your own country and then you end up believing in much more than fulfilling this political agenda of your own country? Thinking about methods in ethnography is hard enough, but having to think about political and financial agendas of whomever influencing your work makes it so much harder, especially when your thoughts and beliefs about the said culture before you set out on the project and after have to indeed confuse the situation.
He calls for "methodological flexibility".(p.252). That makes sense to me when appreciating the difference of every culture and the various interpretations. However, it is hard to continue to have a discipline that modern-day anthropologists and students are expecting to grow with the times and globalization while at the same time having to create disciplinary lines to ensure there is a border defining anthropology against the borders of similar YET DIFFERENT disciplines: "The kind of creative response to a new field situation is what good ethnography has always been about".(p.252).
To conclude the book, Agar points out that one begins an ethnography striving to even just break through with only a beginning of an understanding of the said culture, but mainly to familiarize. To conclude with a final ethnographic project, the goal ends up being to become as if a stranger to be able to "document the experience from the perspective of a stranger".(p.252). This makes so much sense to me and wish I could have said it better! "INFORMAL TO FORMAL".
To sum up, of course I must quote Agar again....he leaves us with this thought: "So by all means the move to increase the general research sophistication of ethnographers should be encouraged. But at the same time, it would be tragic to lose what some converts call "soft", "unscientific", or "fuzzy" research. Much of the world we seek to understand has just those characteristics, including our own involvements in it as researchers. If we only pick up material that can be welded, we leave a lot behind".(p.246). The most important and sensible point that Agar seems to convey in this book is that for whatever reasons someone sets out to accomplish an ethnography, the end result and theories matter, yes, but the most important thing to remember is that the ethnography IS method and the two must not be separated. So, to set out to write an ethnography is to concern oneself with method and that the two cannot be separated.