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The Ethnographic Interview
A must-read classic for anyone academic ethnographers to market researchers involved with data collection from individual human beings. The Ethnographic Interview is a practical, self-teaching handbook that guides readers step-by-step through interview techniques commonly used to research ethnography and culture. The text also shows how to analyze collected data and how to write an ethnography. Appendices include research questions and writing tasks. James P. Spradley (1933-1982), a professor of anthropology at Macalester College, wrote or edited twenty books on ethnography and qualitative research in twelve years, including The Cultural Ethnography in Complex Society (with McCurdy; 2/E with Shandy), The Ethnographic Interview, Participant Observation, The Cocktail Woman's Work in a Man's World (with Mann), and You Owe Yourself a An Ethnography of Urban Nomads, all available from Waveland Press. He was among the first cultural anthropologists to study modern U.S. life and to apply distinctly anthropological concepts and methods to address real-world problems like occupational stress, deafness, and homelessness.
247 pages, Paperback
First published April 3, 1979
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
March 15, 2026
honestly feels like I just read a bible for qualitative research/ethnography
September 9, 2026
Great resource! Commonly used referenced in qualitative interviewing 101. It's also one of the ONLY examples I've seen in which an author breaks down an interview and illustrates the craft of what they're doing and why they're doing it. It's SO helpful to see an example of how other interviewers conduct themselves!
This is actually a big problem in the field of anthropology - there's tons of literature on theory and there's methodological literature justifying why certain methods should be used (e.g. arguing that studying phenomenological, sensory experience is important in destabilizing hegemonic Cartesian analytical traditions but not necessarily diving into the nitty gritty details of how to do this). But there are very few detailed, practical breakdowns of how to actually do anthropology - in particular, how to conduct an ethnographic interview. When compared to teaching, therapy, or even conducting psychological experiments, my experience has been that the craft of being an anthropologist is often not emphasized in training programs.
I read the 1979 version of this book which is a bit outdated, though that's to be expected as a product of its time (early cognitive anthropology). The subfield of cognitive anthropology has since grown beyond a narrow focus on folk terms and taxonomies of knowledge that Spradley emphasizes - for instance, he repeatedly refers to his work with tramps, conveying his methods for learning their detailed lexicon (they called themselves tramps, they sleep in flops, here is a flow chart of all the different kinds of tramps and all the different kinds of flops). This gives a lot of useful information about how tramps classify the world, and can render an exhaustive taxonomic chart of their vocabulary, but this doesn't necessarily dive deep into their most implicit, ontological cultural models (for instance, what it means to be a person, why does one person become a tramp and not another), or the phenomenological experience of being a tramp. I'd love to see a similar concrete methods book for how to tap into these "deeper" realms.
Still, although it's tailored for a very specific kind of anthropology, it's a tremendously valuable resource in its detailed breakdown of the craft of interviewing. It seems to be one of a kind.
Contents:
Part One: Ethnographic Research
Chapter One: Ethnography and Culture
Chapter Two: Language and Field Work
Chapter Three: Informants
Part Two: The Developmental Research Sequence
Step One: Locating an Informant
Step Two: Interviewing an Informant
Step Three: Making an Ethnographic Record
Step Four: Asking Descriptive Questions
Step Five: Analyzing Ethnographic Interviews
Step Six: Making a Domain Analysis [using descriptive questions]
Step Seven: Asking Structural Questions
Step Eight: Making a Taxonomic Analysis [using structural questions]
Step Nine: Asking Contrast Questions
Step Ten: Making a Componential Analysis [using contrast questions]
Step Eleven: Discovering Cultural Themes
Step Twelve: Writing an Ethnography
Key Takeaways:
There are different Types of Descriptions. Spradley provides a chart with Insider's Language on X-axis, and Outsider's Language on Y-axis. A straight diagonal line goes from Ethnocentric Descriptions in upper right corner (using primarily outsider's language), down to the bottom left corner through social science descriptions, standard ethnographies, monolingual ethnographies, life histories, to ethnographic novels (closest to maxing insider's language).
Language & the Ethnographic Record: when making field notes, note the language that is being used - for instance, the investigator's language (the language of social science); the insider's language (for instance, the language of tramps); specialized or official languages (such as courtroom languages or the language of an alcoholism treatment center). It is important to make a verbatim record of what people say as you go along - you want the exact native terms as well as the exact observer terms.
Role of the Informant: different from friendship, different from traditional social science research that cultivates the roles of subject (testing hypothesis on subjects' responses versus acquiring their knowledge), respondent (someone who responds to a survey or simple queries but does not give deep information about their culture), and actor (someone who becomes the object of observation in a natural setting, like gorillas being watched by primatologists - they are not informants because they may or may not reveal their cultural information in their own words). Note, it's often better to interview strangers as friends, family can bring relational baggage to the informant-ethnographer relationship.
Types of Speech Events: The Friendly Conversation is a different type of speech event from the Ethnographic Interview.
The Friendly Conversation has the following traits:
Greetings that acknowledge a close relationship (it's good to see you);
Lack of explicit purpose (no one says, "let's talk about topic X");
Avoiding repetition ("Did I tell you about Y?");
Asking questions about personal matters ("How's the family");
Expressing interest to encourage the conversation ("That's great!");
Expressing ignorance to protect friends from boring us and encourage them to continue ("I didn't know that!");
Taking turns in a reciprocal manner to keep the conversation balanced ("What about you?");
Abbreviating, or references to things that both parties know ("How are things going with Sam" - the inquirer must already know about Sam);
Pausing when neither party feels it necessary to talk;
Leave-taking with a ritual that marks the end of the conversation ("Well I have to get going").
The Ethnographic Interview, on the other hand has the following traits:
Greetings that acknowledge a new relationship ("thanks for coming, it's nice to meet you");
Explicit purpose (to learn about X topic);
Ethnographic explanations (the ethnographer explains things like the kind of information they are looking for, the purpose of their research, why they are recording, why they want the informant's native language, or what kind of interview will be conducted - for instance, an in-depth interview or card-sorting);
Question explanations (the ethnographer explains instructions for different types of questions - for instance, descriptive questions asking an informant to describe something ("Could you tell me what you do at the office?"), structural questions about how informants organize their knowledge ("What are all the stages in getting transferred in your company?"), or contrast questions finding out what terms mean by contrasting them with other terms ("What's the difference between a bass and a northern pike?");
Asymmetrical turn-taking - the ethnographer steers the conversation but the informant does most of the talking;
Repeating replaces the normal rule of avoiding repetition, with the ethnographer repeating similar questions until the informant can't think of anything else ("Can you think of any other things you do on a typical night?");
Expressing interest and ignorance occur more often but only on the part of the ethnographer to convey interest;
Rather than abbreviating because both parties know insider-knowledge, the ethnographer encourages the informant to expand and to say more.
Example interview illustration:
Ethnographer: Hi, Pam. How are you? Pam: Good. How are things with you?
--> Greetings: This exchange of questions and words like "Hi" is a bit more formal than what might occur between close friends.
Ethnographer: Fine. How's school going? Pam: Pretty slow; things are just getting started in most classes. Ethnographer: I'm really glad you could talk to me today. Pam: Well, I'm not sure if I can help you. I just don't know what you want to know. Ethnographer: Well, as I told you on the phone, I'm interested in understanding your work as a cocktail waitress. You've had quite a bit of experience, haven't you?
--> Giving ethnographic explanations: This begins here in recognizing they are going to "talk." Pam expresses doubts about her ability; she is unsure of the purpose of the interview. The ethnographer explains.
The Rapport Process: there are stages to the ethnographic interview; it is a dynamic experience. It's common to go through the following stages: apprehension (the informant may be unsure what the purpose of the speech event is; the ethnographer may be nervous that the informant may be suspicious of them); exploration (both parties try out the new relationship, the informant testing to see if they're answers are what the ethnographer wants, the ethnographer exploring how to get the information they want); cooperation (both parties begin to trust one another and know what to expect from one another); participation (the informant recognizes their role as a teacher, of sorts, and participates in bringing new attention to the ethnographer, perhaps helping to uncover patterns in their own culture). To ease this process, make repeated explanations ("As I said earlier, I'm interested in finding out how you talk about things"), restate what informants say, reinforcing that it's valuable information that you're interested in ("So, if a man was a trustee, he'd do easy time."), and ask for use instead of meaning ("How would you use that word in a sentence" versus "What do you mean by...").
Ethnographic Questions
1.0 DESCRIPTIVE QUESTIONS
1.1 Grand Tour Questions
1.11 Typical Grand Tour Questions
1.12 Specific Grand Tour Questions
1.13 Guided Grand Tour Questions
1.14 Task-Related Grand Tour Questions
1.2 Mini-Tour Questions
1.21 Typical Mini-Tour Questions
1.22 Specific Mini-Tour Questions
1.23 Guided Mini-Tour Questions
1.24 Task-Related Mini-Tour Questions
1.3 Example Questions
1.4 Experience Questions
1.5 Native-Language Questions
1.51 Direct Language Questions
1.52 Hypothetical-Interaction Questions
1.53 Typical-Sentence Questions
2.0 STRUCTURAL QUESTIONS
2.1 Verification Questions
2.11 Domain Verification Questions
2.12 Included Term Verification Questions
2.13 Semantic Relationship Verification Questions
2.14 Native-Language Verification Questions
2.2 Cover Term Questions
2.3 Included Term Questions
2.4 Substitution Frame Questions
2.5 Card Sorting Structural Questions
3.0 CONTRAST QUESTIONS
3.1 Contrast Verification Questions
3.2 Directed Contrast Questions
3.3. Dyadic Contrast Questions
3.4 Triadic Contrast Questions
3.5 Contrast Set Sorting Questions
3.6 Twenty Questions Game
3.7 Rating Questions
This is actually a big problem in the field of anthropology - there's tons of literature on theory and there's methodological literature justifying why certain methods should be used (e.g. arguing that studying phenomenological, sensory experience is important in destabilizing hegemonic Cartesian analytical traditions but not necessarily diving into the nitty gritty details of how to do this). But there are very few detailed, practical breakdowns of how to actually do anthropology - in particular, how to conduct an ethnographic interview. When compared to teaching, therapy, or even conducting psychological experiments, my experience has been that the craft of being an anthropologist is often not emphasized in training programs.
I read the 1979 version of this book which is a bit outdated, though that's to be expected as a product of its time (early cognitive anthropology). The subfield of cognitive anthropology has since grown beyond a narrow focus on folk terms and taxonomies of knowledge that Spradley emphasizes - for instance, he repeatedly refers to his work with tramps, conveying his methods for learning their detailed lexicon (they called themselves tramps, they sleep in flops, here is a flow chart of all the different kinds of tramps and all the different kinds of flops). This gives a lot of useful information about how tramps classify the world, and can render an exhaustive taxonomic chart of their vocabulary, but this doesn't necessarily dive deep into their most implicit, ontological cultural models (for instance, what it means to be a person, why does one person become a tramp and not another), or the phenomenological experience of being a tramp. I'd love to see a similar concrete methods book for how to tap into these "deeper" realms.
Still, although it's tailored for a very specific kind of anthropology, it's a tremendously valuable resource in its detailed breakdown of the craft of interviewing. It seems to be one of a kind.
Contents:
Part One: Ethnographic Research
Chapter One: Ethnography and Culture
Chapter Two: Language and Field Work
Chapter Three: Informants
Part Two: The Developmental Research Sequence
Step One: Locating an Informant
Step Two: Interviewing an Informant
Step Three: Making an Ethnographic Record
Step Four: Asking Descriptive Questions
Step Five: Analyzing Ethnographic Interviews
Step Six: Making a Domain Analysis [using descriptive questions]
Step Seven: Asking Structural Questions
Step Eight: Making a Taxonomic Analysis [using structural questions]
Step Nine: Asking Contrast Questions
Step Ten: Making a Componential Analysis [using contrast questions]
Step Eleven: Discovering Cultural Themes
Step Twelve: Writing an Ethnography
Key Takeaways:
There are different Types of Descriptions. Spradley provides a chart with Insider's Language on X-axis, and Outsider's Language on Y-axis. A straight diagonal line goes from Ethnocentric Descriptions in upper right corner (using primarily outsider's language), down to the bottom left corner through social science descriptions, standard ethnographies, monolingual ethnographies, life histories, to ethnographic novels (closest to maxing insider's language).
Language & the Ethnographic Record: when making field notes, note the language that is being used - for instance, the investigator's language (the language of social science); the insider's language (for instance, the language of tramps); specialized or official languages (such as courtroom languages or the language of an alcoholism treatment center). It is important to make a verbatim record of what people say as you go along - you want the exact native terms as well as the exact observer terms.
Role of the Informant: different from friendship, different from traditional social science research that cultivates the roles of subject (testing hypothesis on subjects' responses versus acquiring their knowledge), respondent (someone who responds to a survey or simple queries but does not give deep information about their culture), and actor (someone who becomes the object of observation in a natural setting, like gorillas being watched by primatologists - they are not informants because they may or may not reveal their cultural information in their own words). Note, it's often better to interview strangers as friends, family can bring relational baggage to the informant-ethnographer relationship.
Types of Speech Events: The Friendly Conversation is a different type of speech event from the Ethnographic Interview.
The Friendly Conversation has the following traits:
Greetings that acknowledge a close relationship (it's good to see you);
Lack of explicit purpose (no one says, "let's talk about topic X");
Avoiding repetition ("Did I tell you about Y?");
Asking questions about personal matters ("How's the family");
Expressing interest to encourage the conversation ("That's great!");
Expressing ignorance to protect friends from boring us and encourage them to continue ("I didn't know that!");
Taking turns in a reciprocal manner to keep the conversation balanced ("What about you?");
Abbreviating, or references to things that both parties know ("How are things going with Sam" - the inquirer must already know about Sam);
Pausing when neither party feels it necessary to talk;
Leave-taking with a ritual that marks the end of the conversation ("Well I have to get going").
The Ethnographic Interview, on the other hand has the following traits:
Greetings that acknowledge a new relationship ("thanks for coming, it's nice to meet you");
Explicit purpose (to learn about X topic);
Ethnographic explanations (the ethnographer explains things like the kind of information they are looking for, the purpose of their research, why they are recording, why they want the informant's native language, or what kind of interview will be conducted - for instance, an in-depth interview or card-sorting);
Question explanations (the ethnographer explains instructions for different types of questions - for instance, descriptive questions asking an informant to describe something ("Could you tell me what you do at the office?"), structural questions about how informants organize their knowledge ("What are all the stages in getting transferred in your company?"), or contrast questions finding out what terms mean by contrasting them with other terms ("What's the difference between a bass and a northern pike?");
Asymmetrical turn-taking - the ethnographer steers the conversation but the informant does most of the talking;
Repeating replaces the normal rule of avoiding repetition, with the ethnographer repeating similar questions until the informant can't think of anything else ("Can you think of any other things you do on a typical night?");
Expressing interest and ignorance occur more often but only on the part of the ethnographer to convey interest;
Rather than abbreviating because both parties know insider-knowledge, the ethnographer encourages the informant to expand and to say more.
Example interview illustration:
Ethnographer: Hi, Pam. How are you? Pam: Good. How are things with you?
--> Greetings: This exchange of questions and words like "Hi" is a bit more formal than what might occur between close friends.
Ethnographer: Fine. How's school going? Pam: Pretty slow; things are just getting started in most classes. Ethnographer: I'm really glad you could talk to me today. Pam: Well, I'm not sure if I can help you. I just don't know what you want to know. Ethnographer: Well, as I told you on the phone, I'm interested in understanding your work as a cocktail waitress. You've had quite a bit of experience, haven't you?
--> Giving ethnographic explanations: This begins here in recognizing they are going to "talk." Pam expresses doubts about her ability; she is unsure of the purpose of the interview. The ethnographer explains.
The Rapport Process: there are stages to the ethnographic interview; it is a dynamic experience. It's common to go through the following stages: apprehension (the informant may be unsure what the purpose of the speech event is; the ethnographer may be nervous that the informant may be suspicious of them); exploration (both parties try out the new relationship, the informant testing to see if they're answers are what the ethnographer wants, the ethnographer exploring how to get the information they want); cooperation (both parties begin to trust one another and know what to expect from one another); participation (the informant recognizes their role as a teacher, of sorts, and participates in bringing new attention to the ethnographer, perhaps helping to uncover patterns in their own culture). To ease this process, make repeated explanations ("As I said earlier, I'm interested in finding out how you talk about things"), restate what informants say, reinforcing that it's valuable information that you're interested in ("So, if a man was a trustee, he'd do easy time."), and ask for use instead of meaning ("How would you use that word in a sentence" versus "What do you mean by...").
Ethnographic Questions
1.0 DESCRIPTIVE QUESTIONS
1.1 Grand Tour Questions
1.11 Typical Grand Tour Questions
1.12 Specific Grand Tour Questions
1.13 Guided Grand Tour Questions
1.14 Task-Related Grand Tour Questions
1.2 Mini-Tour Questions
1.21 Typical Mini-Tour Questions
1.22 Specific Mini-Tour Questions
1.23 Guided Mini-Tour Questions
1.24 Task-Related Mini-Tour Questions
1.3 Example Questions
1.4 Experience Questions
1.5 Native-Language Questions
1.51 Direct Language Questions
1.52 Hypothetical-Interaction Questions
1.53 Typical-Sentence Questions
2.0 STRUCTURAL QUESTIONS
2.1 Verification Questions
2.11 Domain Verification Questions
2.12 Included Term Verification Questions
2.13 Semantic Relationship Verification Questions
2.14 Native-Language Verification Questions
2.2 Cover Term Questions
2.3 Included Term Questions
2.4 Substitution Frame Questions
2.5 Card Sorting Structural Questions
3.0 CONTRAST QUESTIONS
3.1 Contrast Verification Questions
3.2 Directed Contrast Questions
3.3. Dyadic Contrast Questions
3.4 Triadic Contrast Questions
3.5 Contrast Set Sorting Questions
3.6 Twenty Questions Game
3.7 Rating Questions
August 18, 2007
The most valuable (and most expensive) book I own. Spradley describes the means by which someone learns a new language and culture specifically for the purpose of writing about it to people seeking to know the culture.
This book is valuable for two reasons: first, it describes the fracturization of culture in the first world, and formalizes a way to translate between disparate cultures within the same language. This skill has proven invauable in translating "deb speak" at work and avoiding misunderstandings between two parties that don't share the same cultural expression.
The second (and primary) reason to own the book is as primer for the fiction author: the book describes the way you select and interview an informant (that's anthropology-speak for someone in the culture willing to talk to you about the culture) to describe the world in which the informant lives. The magic here involves turning inward: invent an informant to a new culture that exists only in your psyche, or part of a culture yet undescribed as part of a historical narrative. Conduct an internal interview and take notes; bam! You're the next Tolkien. (It seems to me from biographies that this is, in fact, what Tolkein did to develop his extraordinary world). This book more valuable to this end than other works of anthropology for two reasons: firstly, it is COMPETENT. This book is rapid and wholly instructional; I found the first readthrough solidified the concepts in my mind for life. Secondly, it describes the difficulties in learning a new cultural language when it is spoken in the same mother tongue, in our case English. Hobo english is obviously different from Harvard english, but this book describes the ways in which is is likely different and how to avoid letting the similarites confuse what a word really means to a hobo if one is from Harvard, or vice versa.
If you want to write good, immersive, utterly original fiction, get this book. Period. It is the secret weapon.
This book is valuable for two reasons: first, it describes the fracturization of culture in the first world, and formalizes a way to translate between disparate cultures within the same language. This skill has proven invauable in translating "deb speak" at work and avoiding misunderstandings between two parties that don't share the same cultural expression.
The second (and primary) reason to own the book is as primer for the fiction author: the book describes the way you select and interview an informant (that's anthropology-speak for someone in the culture willing to talk to you about the culture) to describe the world in which the informant lives. The magic here involves turning inward: invent an informant to a new culture that exists only in your psyche, or part of a culture yet undescribed as part of a historical narrative. Conduct an internal interview and take notes; bam! You're the next Tolkien. (It seems to me from biographies that this is, in fact, what Tolkein did to develop his extraordinary world). This book more valuable to this end than other works of anthropology for two reasons: firstly, it is COMPETENT. This book is rapid and wholly instructional; I found the first readthrough solidified the concepts in my mind for life. Secondly, it describes the difficulties in learning a new cultural language when it is spoken in the same mother tongue, in our case English. Hobo english is obviously different from Harvard english, but this book describes the ways in which is is likely different and how to avoid letting the similarites confuse what a word really means to a hobo if one is from Harvard, or vice versa.
If you want to write good, immersive, utterly original fiction, get this book. Period. It is the secret weapon.
January 9, 2023
Methodical, sequential, organized, structurally precise way of thinking about ethnography. Assumes linguistic precision and precise categories in the minds of cultural informants. Interesting read, but gets boring and repetitive a bit. A helpful reference, though, for organized way of doing ethnographic interviewing.
January 8, 2023
A classic that introduced Spradley's brilliant method. It's a shame he passed so young; he could have changed the method as we know it.
August 12, 2023
I get from here how the gatra and ethnographic elements work in a text. Oh my tengkyu.
November 26, 2018
I’m about as far away from an ethnographer as you can get. I live in the heart of the United States and in the same home for over 20 years. And yet, I use ethnographic interviewing in one form or another every single week. How can it be that I’m not embedding myself into new and strange cultures, and yet I value skills that resemble those needed by an ethnographer so deeply? The answer lies in the techniques and thinking that The Ethnographic Interview teaches and in my work world.
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June 16, 2013
Proof positive that some of the classic texts remain vital reading today. Spradley's text is a must read for anyone interested in ethnographic interviewing. It's full of highly engaging, practical illustrations and written in a very accessible style without losing the complexity of subject matter. Read it!
September 12, 2009
I have read this book probably three times... I have strictly followed Spradley's research sequence. I have followed it religiously for the last year of my life. It is with some pleasure that I mark this book as read. The end is in sight!
September 16, 2014
I absolutely loved this book. Spradley's practical advice for how to conduct ethnographic research is wonderfully precise. Also, the section on taxonomic analysis is required reading for information architects!
April 13, 2008
Straight-forward, accessible and easily understood. Still a touchstone text for me and one I use in class.
July 24, 2011
The Ethnographic Interview
by James P. Spradley
required text for college courses for uni in australia
by James P. Spradley
required text for college courses for uni in australia
March 28, 2013
This, along with a companion volume "Participant Observation," are the gold standard when it comes to the methodology of ethnographic research.
April 7, 2014
Older, published in 1970 something, but still considered the go-to book on ethnographic research. I'm using it for background reading for my dissertation.
November 15, 2015
i want to read this book
November 30, 2024
Dated but not dated. Spradley's insights are vintage and timeless. Anyone new to the field can benefit.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews