Richardson,L. (2000). Evaluating ethnography. Qualitative Inquiry, 6(2), 253-255
Ethnographies, it would seem, are tricky things to evaluate. The following is a list of five criteria found on Wikipedia, quoted from a Richardson paper from 2000:
Ethnographic methodology is not usually evaluated in terms of philosophical standpoint (such as positivism and emotionalism), ethnographies nonetheless need to be evaluated in some manner. While there is no consensus on evaluation standards, Richardson (2000, p. 254) [7] provides 5 criteria that ethnographers might find helpful. They include:
1. Substantive Contribution: “Does the piece contribute to our understanding of social-life?”
2. Aesthetic Merit: “Does this piece succeed aesthetically?”
3. Reflexivity: “How did the author come to write this text…Is there adequate self-awareness and self-exposure for the reader to make judgments about the point of view?”
4. Impact: “Does this affect me? Emotionally? Intellectually?” Does it move me?
5. Expresses a Reality: “Does it seem ‘true’—a credible account of a cultural, social, individual, or communal sense of the ‘real’?”
So, what do folks think? Are these good criteria for evaluating our own ethnographies as we work on them?
