Ethnographers, while scientists by all standards, are also humans, social members, and part of a culture that surrounds and shapes them. Culture is a phenomenon that runs deep and has lasting effects on any person, including the ethnographer. Their belief systems, formed based on the habitus-a concept referring to the deeply ingrained habits, skills, and dispositions that individuals acquire through their socialization and that shape their perceptions and actions-life experiences, and social interactions, are strong, regardless of how objective the person may strive to be. It is impossible for anyone to completely escape the influence of culture.
When ethnographers visit another culture, they view the other culture through the lens of their own culture. Culture, though having a deep influence on the people, will be almost hidden in their own introspections to recognize and understand it. Naturally, even if they try to resist, all their attempts to understand the culture they are studying will be colored by their own culture. Though the comparisons will not be evident, all interpretations will be based on the parent culture and how the new culture will be perceived in comparison , or in light of their own culture.
Thus, ethnography needs to be understood as a process in which the ethnographer understands other cultures in terms of their own culture. Calling this, the researcher's subjectivity will be too individualistic. As culture is more lasting and deep, individual-based possibilities of control and reflection will be too limiting while writing and interpreting ethnography. We need to understand that another ethnographer with a similar culture will interpret the ethnographic context similarly.