Hine & Ethnography

I found Hine's article to be quite interesting, and I actually really enjoyed reading it. I think of all the research approaches and methods discussed thus far, Hine's attitude sounds the most "realistic" to me. What I mean by this is that her description of ethnography as a reflective process (p. 7) is a fair assessment, and I agree that while ethnographers may have preliminary thoughts on the direction their research will take, these thoughts must be constantly re-evaluated in the face of field experiences. I find her thoughts realistic because I think, in a way, they hold true for other methods of research as well. Take interviews for example. No matter how much time and revision and planning a researcher puts into creating their questions, until the interview begins the interviewer really has no idea what kind of questions will be important to their study. Often an interviewee will take the interview in a direction that the interviewer could not have predicted, and this can have a great effect on the researcher's findings. A research cannot really plan every detail of their study, they are more often than not "along for the ride".
Luckily, most researchers are experienced enough to have a firm grasp on realistic expectations of their research and are not truly taken out of their element. For the less experienced, however, almost any study can possess Hine's element of "wait and see" research. I appreciate the fact that Hine acknowledges the unpredictability of research in an ethnography and her article has opened my eyes to the benefits of an open attitude concerning social science research in general.