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iRacine.com - Ethnography Qualifications

What is an Ethnography?

An ethnography is a research methodology developed through the field of Anthropology. In the real sense, a researcher spends copious amounts of time participating and observing people in their own environment. Typically these observations are recorded and take weeks, months, and even years to complete. The corporate world, in all it's infinite wisdom has used the term "Ethnography" while using anthropologists to gather information from people to help them make decisions on products or give them direction for their businesses. The problem is, they usually do this with one or perhaps two interviews. So, although what we do is not an ethnography in the true sense of the word, our trained team spends a couple of hours asking you questions about your past, your family life, and gathers any information you are willing to provide for us to create a picture of you to share with other iRacine.com members.

How do I get my family profiled through an iRacine.com Ethnography?

We have specific criteria, highlighted below for you to see what are qualifications are for conducting an interview with you.

iRacine.com Ethnography Screening Criteria (Seasoned)

For both men and women interviewees (one point person to be interviewed per family): The family must have at least three generations of family living and/or working in Racine County. For example, a man or woman must have parents living in Racine, as well as, children living and/or working in Racine. If the family has been in Racine for less than 37 years, the family does not qualify for the iRacine.com “seasoned” ethnography. In short, at least three generations of family must be living in Racine County for a minimum of 37 years. Caveat: Not all members of the family need to still be living in Racine. The interviewee must complete an iRacine.com Information Request Form.

iRacine.com Ethnography Screening Criteria (Non-seasoned)

For both men and women interviewees (one point person, not necessarily having family in Racine): There are no requirements for having family roots based in Racine County. Rather this can be a family or an individual who has lived and/or worked in Racine county for 10 or less years. The only requirement is the “non-seasoned” interviewee must be over the age of 18 and consent to the iRacine.com Information Release Form.

iRacine.com Ethnography Screening Criteria (General)

For all other people who live and/or work in Racine County, you have the opportunity to be interviewed by the iRacine.com team. Under the “General” category of interviewees there is no specific age or family history requirements. However, like those who qualify for the “seasoned” and “non-seasoned” interviews you must agree to the terms under the iRacine.com Information Release Form.

There are a number of documents to be reviewed with our ethnography team prior to conducting any interviews. As we prepare these documents for the web (for example: The Information Request Form), we will post them to this page for your reference. In the meantime, if you are interested in participating in an ethnography with iRacine.com, please use our contact page and we will discuss our availability and forward any pertinent documents for you to read ahead of us initiating contact with you. We plan on conducting between one or two ethnographies per month and only one ethnography will be presented on iRacine.com per month. These are slated for Fall 2010 release.