Socio-Cultural Challenges in Conducting Ethnographic Research among Ethiopian Street Youth

Little has been written on the personal experience of the researcher as it relates to data collection, data analysis and interpretation of results. Even more scarce has been knowledge that addresses the challenges and barriers faced by 21st century researchers engaged in ethnographic data collection amidst culturally diverse populations. The present work has addressed these gaps in the literature by detailing the personal, methodological and cultural challenges encountered by this researcher in a larger study which utilized a mixed method design to investigate homeless street youth in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Results indicated the need for social workers to possess an awareness of their own limitations and biases as it may relate to cultural differences. Key Words: Field Notes, Qualitative Research, Homeless Street Youth, and Addis Ababa A great body of literature exists on the usefulness of field notes in qualitative research. Much of the literature addresses the importance of field notes for amplifying participant data that are collected in qualitative research (Ortlipp, 2008). Often, when results from such research are published, limitations noted to these studies include researcher variables/ limitations, without providing information on how to address these limitations. Little has been written on the personal experience of the researcher as it relates to data collection, data analysis and interpretation of results. Even more scarce has been knowledge that addresses the challenges and barriers faced by 21st century researchers engaged in ethnographic data collection amidst culturally diverse populations. The present work addresses these gaps in the literature by detailing the personal, methodological and cultural challenges encountered by this researcher in a larger study which utilized a mixed method design to investigate homeless street youth in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The findings presented in this work stem from the qualitative portion of the larger mixed method study, and are comprised of the field notes documented by this researcher before, during, and after the field research. The present work focuses on findings emanating from the analysis of the field notes. Although rich data were collected concerning the experiences of street youth in Addis Ababa, and the findings are being prepared for publication both as journal articles and as documentaries, this researcher found that the analysis of her personal experience would provide useful data for others who wish to engage in like pursuits. The findings reported in this work are particularly significant in adding to the extant literature on (a) the importance of field notes in qualitative research, (b) managing researcher reflexivity (i.e., bias, making sure the researcher observes data and findings objectively and not subjectively) in qualitative research, (c) conducting qualitative research on culturally diverse populations, and (d) conducting research with vulnerable populations such as homeless street youths. Keeping and using field notes enabled this researcher to make her experiences, opinions, thoughts, and feelings visible, and