Hammersley, Martyn
(1992).
Some reflections on ethnography and validity.
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 5(3)
pp. 195–203.
Abstract
The question of what are appropriate criteria for assessing ethnographic research has become a matter of considerable debate in recent years. This paper identifies four philosophical positions that have influenced ethnographers' thinking about this issue: realism, positivism#shmethodism, relativism, and instrumentalism. The implications of these ideas for judgements about the validity of ethnographic findings are sketched in the first half of the paper. In the second half, I argue that none of these positions is adequate and outline a more satisfactory view.
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