Though I have a better understanding of what ethnography is, I still feel that I'm not 100% clear on its most concise definition. Apparently, however, I am not alone. According to Hammersley, the word is often used in different ways for different occassions. Often ethnography is defined by the methods employed (which is how I best identify what it is). However, ethnography can refer to an anthropological study or a linguistic exploration of langauge; it can be both poetic and rhetorical (p. 10). If ethnography is anything, it isn't simple.

As I've stated before, I can now best identify an ethnography through its methods. However, as I was reading through Eisenhart's article, I was struck by the passage "my worry is that the way we teach and write about ethnographic methods may encourage the use of methods that are no longer adequate for addressing aspects of cultue that are important to contemporary life" (p. 18). This passage caused me to pause and ask, well what are the ethnographic methods with which I am the most familiar? Observations, Interviews, possibly surveys? Eisenhart's article seems to imply that the ethnographic methods that long have been in existence are no longer sufficient. That we need to develop or appropriate methods of inquiry that were not observed as ethnographic, which led me to the following questions:

• What are some examples of new ethnographic methods and how have they "filled in the gaps" in the other ethnographic methodologies? (for instance are virtual observations [observations in online contexts] the same as observations that might take place in the real world?)
• Have some of the ethnographic methods of research become obsolete? If so how?
• Where are the gaps in ethnographic studies that must be filled in?
• How can we as ethnographers maintain the balance between individual privacy and still communicate the information that is important to the inquiry?