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200 BCE
Herodotus
The description of other ways of life is an activity with roots in ancient times. Herodotus, the Greek traveler and historian of the third century BC, wrote of some 50 different peoples he encountered or heard of, remarking on their laws, social customs, religion, and appearance. He traveled from one culture to another to document the traditions and sociopolitical practices among people. -
Gerhard Friedrich Muller
Ethnography was developed by Gerhard Friedrich Muller (a professor of History and Geography). He was working in the second Kamachatka Expedition in 1743- 44 -
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The use of questionnaires
The use of the questionnaire was utilized on a French naval expedition to Australia in 1800-1803 and later became a common tool of ethnologists in the 1800's -
Anthropology
Anthropology was established "as a recognized field of study" in the 1840's in American and Europe as ethnology. -
The Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution was a big supporter of anthropological research stated in 1846. -
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The Royal Anthropological Society's Notes
The Royal Anthropological Society's Notes and Quieries on Anthropology was one of the first major questionnaire studies, published in six editions from 1874 to 1951 -
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The use of charts and tables
Malinowski did much of the early definition of the science of participant observation in the early 1900's. He was first to "clearly articulate" the methodology of fieldwork. He advocated the use of charts and tables in analysis. He advocated using descriptions of everyday action to understand societies. -
Participant observation
Participant observation has been considered the domain of anthropologists . It's origins are traced to Malinowski's fieldwork among Trobriand Islanders in 1914. "He was the first to use participant observation to generate specific anthropological knowledge." -
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The establishment of ethnography as a professional field
Modern anthropologists usually identify the establishment of ethnography as a professional field with the pioneering work of both the Polish-born British anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands of Melanesia (c. 1915) and the American anthropologist Margaret Mead, whose first fieldwork was in Samoa (1925). -
Ethnographic research methods
Beginning in the 1960's and 1970's ethnographic research methods began to be widely used by communication scholars.
