Preparing for the field: developing competence as an ethnographic field worker

If ethnography can be considered as a form of work, then the rules and competencies of this work need to be learnt along with clear markers of progress to enable the ethnographer to gauge their developing competence. In this paper Fiona Murphy draws on the work of Benner (1984), which provides a framework for the proposition that there is a progression in developing competence as an ethnographic fieldworker from 'novice to expert'. This has implications for the preparation and support of novice fieldworkers in that these 'rules' and competencies should be made more explicit and transparent