Ethnographic methods

This chapter explores the process of generating the ‘thick description’ that is the product of interpretive ethnographic research. The chapter begins with an overview of the history of ethnographic methods and their current place within International Relations and Security Studies, before going on to outline the key characteristics of a critical interpretive ethnographic methodology. In the following section, a three-stage model of the research process is presented and illustrated with examples taken from the author’s fieldwork in Kyrgyzstan in 2005-2006 on understandings of security. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the limitations of ethnographic methods.