Ethnography as a sustainable approach to cultural landscape studies: A case of Nupe community in central Nigeria

Abstract

Cultural landscapes are referred to as the way people relate to their environment and the meaning and values they derive from such transactions. Understanding such cultural landscape transactions through the perspective of the native people requires a social science research method that will capture people's cultural values about their landscape. One of such methodological approach is ethnography. Ethnography is associated with the immersion of the researcher in the field and it draws on a family of methods which includes participant observations, listening, and interviews. These multiple methods of data collection that are subsumed in ethnography are complex most especially when it is used in cultural landscape research. As such this study gives a detailed outline of how ethnography was employed in the study of a cultural landscape of Nupe ethnic group in central Nigeria. Furthermore, it gives a written account of the experiences of the researcher which also has to take cognisance the role of theory and philosophical paradigm in social science research. Similarly, the chapter gives an account of the procedure followed in establishing the philosophical paradigm as well as how the reliability and validity of data elicited were ensured. Most importantly is the applicability of the ethnographic process in the study of other cultural landscapes.