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Cultural Immersion: Researching in uncharted waters!

Being out in the field doing ethnography is a welcome opportunity to immerse into the lives of people. Conducting immersive research in an unfamiliar location and culture can be very challenging. A little bit of anxiety or a passing bout of panic is par for the course.

There is a silver lining here. The ‘beginners mind’ helps us drop our expectations, assumptions and approach everything without judgment. You tend to be more curious and open-minded

So how do you go about doing conducting cultural immersions?

Plan your fieldwork!

Take time to prepare and reduce unpleasant surprises as much as possible. Partner with the right people for recruitment, interpretation, logistics, and scheduling.

It is advisable to partner with a ‘fixer’, a local who could help you understand the cultural context, overcome problems & hurdles in the field.

1. Plan ways to gather your data. You can do ride-alongs, shadowing, home visits with a walkthrough, observe your participants engage with the specific product/service/activity or even participate if needed; you can observe a random group/individual at the place of context and talk to one of them (intercepts)
2. Make an observation plan so that you and your team are aware of the key areas to observe. It is not possible to observe everything so identifying the key elements based on your goals would help
3. Structured time becomes important as immersion studies might be time-critical. For example, if you want to observe music lovers at a concert, make sure you schedule fieldwork during a scheduled concert.
4. Plan to have unstructured time of at least 2 days before and after the study. Having some time off from the actual study gives you the mindshare and openness to immerse into the new city and culture
5. Considering the time and effort taken in such studies, aligning stakeholders on the objectives, methods & value of the immersion exercise is critical. Having a diverse group of stakeholders say, product managers, designers, researchers would be beneficial. However, one needs to be cautious as they might be a distraction or intrusion in the research
6. Use the pre-mortem technique to help you identify and prepare for any contingencies. A pre-mortem makes the team consider project failure before it happens and works backwards to identify the conditions that might lead to failure. You do this at the beginning of the project so that you can plan for the pitfalls before one occurs. Ask yourself

What are the various possibilities due to which this immersion would fail?

For example, consider a project to understand people’s hobbies. A pre-mortem line item would be “If it rains, we cannot observe any outdoor hobbies. All those sessions would be canceled”. The action item could be to do the sessions in non-rainy seasons/days or choose participants who are engaged in indoor hobbies.

Calibrate to the new culture!

Spend some time understanding the environment, orient yourself to the location, the people, and culture.

Use your unstructured time to look for ways to immerse yourself in the context. Some of the things you could do:

Rickshaws, still a common mode of transport in Dhaka helped us know it’s street better

1) Buy a local sim to try and use the local apps

2) Take different modes of commute — public transport, use a local ride-sharing app, walk

3) Eat at a local restaurant and try the local delicacies

4) Hangout at popular spots

5) Shop like a local

Your local fixer can be your guide. If ok with the fixer, you can their home to get a first-hand understanding of the local culture and home dynamics.

On one of our cultural immersion trips, we had scheduled the first two days for unstructured time. We simply took a bus or a rickshaw and took off to spend some time in the city. We walked the busy roads, roamed around in the market area, and ate at the local restaurants.

Our fixer accompanied us, helping and guiding us throughout. He helped us understand Dhaka’s people in terms of — how they dress, how they commute, their occupation, what they like to eat and some of their likes/dislikes.

Immersion — Getting your hands dirty!

Blend in, immersion takes time

When you are weighted down with cameras, audio recorders, and notepads; people are bound to notice you. Explain to them your day’s plan, show them your equipment and let them know that the recordings would be safely handled. Start building rapport. Participate in their activities if that helps to build rapport but make sure you do not influence their natural behavior.

Playing along with the participant and his friends, we quickly became insiders.

It is okay to feign ignorance!

Participants would be comfortable sharing their thoughts if they know that you do not have much knowledge about the subject. But in certain situations, you would have to let them know that you know and understand the subject. You should know when to act dumb and when to act knowledgeable.

In the sports study, when one of the researchers acted dumb about the game, they helped her understand their game by elaborating on the tiniest details

Blending in does not mean intrusion!

Out in the field, remember that you have come all the way to be an observer. Immersions are never the time to be the center of attraction.

Participant starting her day. We observed but stayed away careful not to intrude!

Capture the key moments!

Make sure to note down your observations of the key moments, take loads of photographs, and if possible shoot videos. Use the observation plan as a guide to know which areas to focus on. Focus on what is important!

Make it a team activity: Involving the whole team brings different observations and perspectives to the table.

Vehicle and people are a major hurdle when the kids play. We noticed the frequent interruptions by passing vehicles and people in the narrow lane. The kids never mentioned these as there is a tendency to air brush them away. These photographs were used later to bring up the conversation on issues

Retrospection to close the loop

The artifacts(photos, videos, notes) which you collected during your observation will help you recall the participant behavior at a later point. The retrospective/ debrief conversations after the ethnographic observations will aid recollection and establish context.

For one of the ride-along which we conducted, we spent some time at a coffee shop where the participant usually hangs out after college, to understand the key moments during the ride-along

Get the whole Context

Engage with the other touchpoints of the participant to get a holistic context. For example, music listening is an activity that can take place during commute, while working as well as for entertainment with the whole family at home. A home walkthrough and observing the family could help you gather the traditions/rituals followed as part of their family/culture. Talking to the friends and family involved in using the product/service could serve as missing pieces in the puzzle. All these observations and findings together can help you understand the big picture

Talking to parents and friends help to get a holistic understanding

Debrief every day with the whole team

The team might be tired at the end of the day but debriefs play a major role in documenting the observations while still fresh in memory.

There are so many little things that happen during immersion, and not everything gets captured in your notes/video. Debrief with the whole team, one team member might have noticed something which others might have missed!

Debriefs are also the best way to take a corrective course of action for the subsequent days of fieldwork.

Debrief no matter where you are!

Make an Impact by sharing your immersion experience!

Share your insights with all the stakeholders supported by the rich artefacts from the immersion. Show them the videos so that they get a chance for a virtual immersion. It would be a great way to help them get to know the users and build products that align with the user needs.

Every immersion is going to be different and each one will help us learn & evolve. We know that this is not the time to be on the field considering the current pandemic situation. But let us be ready; for when times get better we will be ready to take the plunge!