Ethnographic Interviewing

Ethnographic Interviewing

When using a collaborative style it is crucial that the conversation always begins by using informal chat. Talking about the weather or how the day is going or how the family is coming along, as attention to social propriety, must occur first. After some small talk, an invitation is made to the parent for an agreement to switch roles, if you will, where the patient takes the role as a cultural guide. The parent has the expert knowledge of his life, with respect to his own community group.  The parent is in the most informed position to train the health provider who watches, waits and wonders from a curious “not knowing” position. When the health provider takes a less expert position, and reduces hierarchy, important questions can be asked to bring out the families’ narrative. The interviewer can then enter the cultural world, rather than manipulate it to the ends of the provider.

People of color, ethnicities, and cultural minorities, as well as other enclaves, hold different world views and assumptions and their diverse beliefs and values seem foreign to the majority. They can be at odds with everyone unless we can promote tolerance and understanding. People with out-of-the-way life styles making up the culture of deafness, aspies, adolescents looking for their identity and certain poverty groups such as the homeless and single parent families, require different perceptions and a reorganized attunement or language. They require matching, just to get talk going, much less to motivate them to obtain a service or a changed agenda around a risky health behavior.

Replacing a less direct or personalized approach with ethnographic methods offers a more respectful less confrontational interaction. Contextual and open views can be exchanged, so that the family might respond with less   defensiveness, while saving face for both parties. This can be done by using the examples in the cultural community, where more global, general while getting the big picture. Also, it can be helpful initially to use such words as ‘others’, or ‘they’ or other third person pleural uses, early in the appointment, rather than more personalized references such as the word ‘you’ or first person singular uses. This broader method of inquiry is used initially until specifics, details, and personalized impacts might be dealt with later.

Websites:

methods of interviewing with special questions

using ethnography in communication

Find more about this way of real listening and cultural communication under the Able Web, “Understanding Shared Communications”. Using  the  pronoun “I” in  alternative listening strategies with examples of global questions and cover terms with their descriptors.

Recommended Book: Communicating for Cultural Competence by James W. Leigh 1998 Reprinted 2002 Waveland Press, Inc