Etnografía focalizada en enfermería y ciencias de la salud. Orígenes, debates epistemológicos y aplicaciones empíricas

Introduction: Focused ethnography (FE) is a qualitative research approach derived from traditional ethnography, designed to investigate specific phenomena through brief, targeted fieldwork. Initially developed independently within North American nursing and German sociology, FE is now widely utilized across health disciplines to generate contextually and culturally relevant data under time and resource constraints. This article reviews the origins, epistemological debates, and empirical applications of FE, and examines its strengths, limitations, and prospective directions. Methods: A literature review was conducted and structured around three primary axes: methodological advances, epistemological debates regarding the disciplinary boundaries of FE, and empirical applications within health settings. Based on this synthesis, the article discusses strengths, limitations, and discipline-specific future directions. Results: Recent methodological innovations include multi-sited, team-based fieldwork, integration with knowledge translation, and the use of visual methods. Epistemological debates focus on the validity of distinctions between FE and traditional ethnography, methodological under-specification, and methodological dilution. Applications encompass nursing, medical education, social work, community health, nutrition, and humanitarian missions. The discussion identifies four principal strengths (temporal and resource pragmatism, disciplinary versatility, methodological innovation, and dual-disciplinary genealogy) and six limitations, such as an absence of consensus on the minimum immersion time and restricted institutional access. Discussion: FE represents an evolving methodological field whose legitimacy is still being established, shaped by the interplay between pragmatic efficiency and ethnographic depth, as well as increasing attention to the emotional reflexivity involved in fieldwork.