This paper was prompted by the question, what do we
mean by conducting ’ethnography’? Is it
in fact ‘case study’ drawing on ethnographic techniques? My contention is that
in many cases, researchers are not actually conducting ethnography as
understood within a traditional sense but rather are engaging in case study,
drawing on ethnographic techniques. Does that matter you might ask? Well it
determines what we can expect to discover from a research project in terms of
results and the unearthing of deeper complexities. I frame the discussion
around a set of closely related issues, namely: ethnography, case study and researcher positioning, drawing
on ethnographic techniques and fieldwork relations. The original
contribution of the piece and overall argument is that research can represent a
hybrid form, and based on my own research experience, I propose a new term ‘ethno -case study’ that has advantages of both ethnography and
case study.