We regularly see data science and ethnography conceptualized as polar ends of a research spectrum—one as a crunching of colossal data sets, the other as a slow simmer of experiential immersion

We regularly see data science and ethnography conceptualized as polar ends of a research spectrum—one as a crunching of colossal data sets, the other as a slow simmer of experiential immersion. Unfortunately, we also see occasional professional stereotyping. A naïve view of “crunching” can make it seem as if all numerical work was brute computational force, as if data scientists never took the time to understand the social context from which data comes. A naïve view of ethnography can make it seem as if ethnography were casual description, “anecdotal” rather than systematic research and analysis grounded in evidence. Neither discipline benefits from these misunderstandings, and in fact there is more common ground than is obvious at first glance. — https://www.epicpeople.org/data-science-and-ethnography/