Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
ETIC PERSPECTIVE
An etic perspective is the external, social scientific perspective of reality.
Some ethnographers are interested only in describing the emic view, without
placing their data in an etic, or scientific, perspective. They stand at the
ideational and phenomenological end of the ethnographic spectrum. Other
ethnographers prefer to rely on etically derived data first and consider emically
derived data secondary in their analysis. They stand at the materialist and pos-
itivistic philosophical end of the ethnographic spectrum. At one time, a con-
flict about whether the causes of human actions are motivated primarily by
ideas (ideational, typically emically oriented perspective) or by the environ-
ment (materialist, often etically based perspective) consumed the field. Today,
most ethnographers simply see emic and etic orientations as markers along a
continuum of styles or different levels of analysis. Most ethnographers start
collecting data from the emic perspective and then try to make sense of what
they have collected in terms of both the native's view and their own scientific
analysis. Just as thorough fieldwork requires an insightful and sensitive cul-
tural interpretation combined with rigorous data collection techniques, good
ethnography requires both emic and etic perspectives.
A burnt-out building in the inner city across from the alternative school for
dropouts provides an excellent example of why it is important to combine emic
and etic perspectives (see Figure 2.3). From an initial etic perspective, it looks
as if there was a fire, possibly due to faulty electrical wiring. A few interviews
with the students, and an alternative emic view is revealed. This was arson for
hire. Some of the students were hired to “torch” a building after the landlord
had increased the insurance coverage on the building. An interview with the
local fire department (another emic view with considerable traditional author-
ity) confirmed the students' emic view, adding a new insight into the alterna-
tive school's “competition” for the students' attention—particularly concerning
alternative sources of activity and revenue. An etic view based on these emic
views provides a more accurate depiction of what happened to the house and,
more to the point, the social circumstances shaping what happened to the
house (see Wolcott, 2008a).
I always ground my work in an emic understanding of the situation and
group. Satisfactorily eliciting, recording, and expressing this perspective takes
hours, days, months, and sometimes years. Although time-consuming, this
approach ensures the validity and usefulness of the data I have collected. At
the same time, the job is not done until I step back and make sense of the sit-
uation from both emic and etic perspectives. Chapter 3 will discuss many of
the tools used to collect and interpret data. Chapter 5 will discuss analyzing
reams of data from emic and etic perspectives.
