ethnographer

IPA/eθˈnɒɡrəfə(r)/
IPA/eθˈnɑːɡrəfər/

ethnographer — noun

  • ethnographersingular
  • ethnographersplural

1. a researcher who lives with a particular community in order to learn about its c

1.nounB2
Definition

a researcher who lives with a particular community in order to learn about its culture by observing daily life and taking part in local activities.

Example

Dr. Okonkwo spent two years as an ethnographer living with the Maasai in Tanzania.

ethnographer + living with [community] + [place]

The young ethnographer carefully recorded the village's annual harvest ceremony.

Common collocations
  • trained ethnographer
  • professional ethnographer
  • work as an ethnographer
Synonyms
  • anthropologist

    a wider category; every ethnographer is an anthropologist, but an anthropologist may work in archaeology, linguistics, or biological anthropology without doing fieldwork with living communities.

  • field researcher

    highlights the method (fieldwork) rather than the specific academic discipline. Can apply to biologists or geographers too.

  • cultural anthropologist

    nearly interchangeable; 'ethnographer' puts emphasis on the hands-on participant-observation approach.

Usage Note

Primarily found in academic fields such as anthropology and sociology. Broader than 'anthropologist', which can refer to any sub-field of anthropology (archaeology, linguistics, biological anthropology).

Common Mistakes

The ethnographer studied rock formations in the desert.
The ethnographer studied the marriage customs of a village community.
An ethnographer studies human culture, not physical or natural features.

Word family

  • ethnography
    nounB2
  • ethnographic
    adjectiveC1
  • ethnographical
    adjectiveC1
  • ethnographically
    adverbC1

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

Ethnographer is the most specific of these terms: it refers to someone who personally lives with a community and uses participant-observation to document its culture. An anthropologist is a broader label covering all sub-fields — anyone trained in the academic discipline of anthropology, whether they study ancient bones, language evolution, or living societies. A field researcher can be anyone who gathers data outside a laboratory; the term is cross-disciplinary and includes geologists and ecologists. Cultural anthropologist is the closest synonym to ethnographer, but it names the sub-field rather than the method; someone can be a cultural anthropologist without ever conducting fieldwork. In practice, an ethnographer always does hands-on fieldwork, whereas a cultural anthropologist may analyse data collected by others. For example: 'Yuki calls herself a cultural anthropologist because her research compares kinship systems across published studies, but Ama is an ethnographer who lived in three villages to gather her own data.'

ethnographer ↗anthropologist ↗field researchercultural anthropologist

Common collocations

Phrases

  • work as an ethnographer
  • train as an ethnographer

Etymology

GreekEnglish

From the Greek roots 'ethnos' (ἔθνος, meaning 'people' or 'nation') and 'graphein' (γράφειν, meaning 'to write'). The compound entered English in the 1800s alongside the rise of anthropology as a formal academic field, referring literally to someone who 'writes about peoples'.