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What is ethnography?

Ethnography is a branch of anthropology that analyzes and describes specific human cultures.Anthropology is a broad field of science that studies human culture from the macro level. Ethnography, on the other hand, studies one specific culture as thoroughly as possible.Typically, this is done by what is known as participant observation. That means the ethnographer actually travels to the location of the culture they are studying and immerses themselves in it as much as possible. For example, an ethnographer interested in the people of Barbados would move to the island and live among the people for an extended time.In ethnography, a researcher builds a detailed, factual profile of a culture because they have lived in it themselves. An ethnographer will eat the cultural food, observe local holidays, participate in local rituals, and try to live their life exactly the same as a local would.This direct approach separates ethnography from other subfields of anthropology. Usually, anthropologists study a culture by researching such things as the artwork, language, or literature.The similarly named ethnology is a subfield of anthropology that studies different cultures more broadly and compares them to each other.