Navigating through Ethnographic Methods
(CSU, Fresno)
California State University, Fresno’s ethnography students have been working with Fresno's Institute of Public Anthropology for the campus’ Henry Madden Library. We sought out looking for inspiration not confirmation and tried to remain as inductive as possible. The methodological approaches utilized in the study have been novel and have come from methods currently being employed rather than from methods of published ethnographies of the past. The collection of the data came from a marriage of design anthropology which employed such techniques as Floating Reference Desk, Bootlegging, Student Theater, and Day Mapping, as well as basic ethnographic techniques such as interviews. In taking on a broad and multi-faceted approach that utilized numerous avenues to collect information about Fresno State students, we not only generated a large amount of data, but also various types of data, all of which require diverse methods of analysis.