Qualitative Research: An Introduction to Methods and Designs

Critiques of Critical Ethnography

Critical ethnography is most commonly subject to at least two broad critiques. The first relates to the political orientation of critical ethnography, and the second relates to issues of representation within critical ethnography.

“It's Politics, Not Research”

One of the most common critiques of critical ethnography relates to validity issues, and this critique has come from both within and outside the ethnographic tradition. Both traditional ethnographers and traditional positivist-oriented researchers charge critical ethnography with lacking validity because it is ideological, political, value based, and overly biased. For many qualitative researchers, validity is understood to be the soundness of an argument, ...