# Ethnography Step By Step Fetterman

> Plan, conduct, analyze, write, and ethically manage ethnographic research using David M. Fetterman's step-by-step framework. Use for cultural description, educational or organizational fieldwork, emic/etic interpretation, participant observation, interviewing, triangulation, pattern and key-event analysis, thick description, reporting, and applied ethnography.

- Skill: `ilog3/ethnography-step-by-step-fetterman` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 11 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add ilog3/ethnography-step-by-step-fetterman`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/ilog3/ethnography-step-by-step-fetterman/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Research & Search
- Author: ilog3 (https://skillmd.com/u/ilog3)
- Updated: 2026-09-22
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/ilog3/ethnography-step-by-step-fetterman

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# 费特曼《民族志：步步深入》

Use this skill to describe and interpret the patterned everyday life of a group or culture through sustained, contextual field inquiry.

## Route the request

- 问题、理论、设计与民族志定位：[chapters/01-overview-design.md](chapters/01-overview-design.md)
- 文化、整体论、情境、主位/客位、结构与象征：[chapters/02-anthropological-concepts.md](chapters/02-anthropological-concepts.md)
- 进入、取样、参与观察、访谈与辅助方法：[chapters/03-field-methods.md](chapters/03-field-methods.md)
- 记录设备、网络、软件与资料治理：[chapters/04-equipment-data.md](chapters/04-equipment-data.md)
- 三角检验、模式、关键事件、图示与结晶化：[chapters/05-analysis.md](chapters/05-analysis.md)
- 田野笔记、深描、报告、写作与伦理：[chapters/06-writing-ethics.md](chapters/06-writing-ethics.md)
- 术语、模板、速查：[glossary.md](glossary.md)、[patterns.md](patterns.md)、[cheatsheet.md](cheatsheet.md)

## Core workflow

`problem/orientation → field design → entrée and rapport → multimethod evidence → iterative analysis → thick description → ethical communication`

Ethnography is both process and product. Fieldwork, analysis, writing, and ethics begin together and reshape one another throughout the study.

## Working procedure

1. State the problem, intended contribution, basic/applied orientation, theoretical lenses, audience, and constraints.
2. Define the cultural group or social world without assuming it is homogeneous or territorially bounded.
3. Enter with broad guiding concepts, not a closed variable list.
4. Build relationships and sample people, settings, events, times, artifacts, and contrasting positions purposively.
5. Combine participant observation and interviewing with records, maps, visual media, surveys, unobtrusive evidence, and relevant digital traces.
6. Move between emic meanings and etic comparison; keep plural realities and researcher interests visible.
7. Analyze continuously through triangulation, pattern recognition, key events, diagrams, counts, and crystallization.
8. Write fieldnotes promptly; develop memos, interim reports, and a final thick description tied to evidence.
9. Reassess ethics across the research lifecycle, including funding, publication, data retention, and consequences.

## Decision rules

- Focus on patterned ordinary life, not only dramatic or unusual events.
- Holism means tracing relevant connections, not collecting everything.
- Treat emic accounts as situated realities, not as one unanimous “native view.”
- Use etic concepts transparently and test whether they distort local distinctions.
- Select tools because they improve observation or analysis; do not let equipment drive the research question.
- Triangulation tests and complicates claims; it does not guarantee one final truth.
- Counts can clarify distribution and salience inside ethnography without turning the study into a survey.
- Thick description connects action, context, meaning, and interpretation; length or decorative detail alone is not thickness.
- Protect participants even when sponsors want rapid or predetermined conclusions.

## Preferred output

Return: **problem/orientation → cultural unit and context → guiding concepts → field and sampling plan → evidence methods/tools → emic/etic analysis → writing form → lifecycle ethics → limits**.