The Use of Ethnography and Narrative Interviews in a Study of ‘Cultures of Dance’

Abstract

In this study I used both ethnography and narrative interviews rather than narrative interviews alone to explore ‘cultures of dance’. Ethnography provides greater ecological validity because the researcher has the opportunity to participate in the various cultures from which interviewees are recruited. The processes of social transformation can be observed and documented, and how the culture becomes embodied in individual participants in material terms, alongside the recording of their narratives. It is more labour-intensive to set up and sustain an ethnographic study, but combining ethnography with narrative interviews produces deeper findings than a purely qualitative interview study.