Doing Ethnography Today

Preface x
1 Introduction: Conceptualizing Ethnography 1
Ethnography is as Personal as it Gets 4
Ethnography is Collaborative 5
Ethnography is Hermeneutic 6
Ethnography is Creative and Constitutive 7
Ethnography Grapples with the Idea of Culture, however Deeply Compromised 8
Ethnography is Mostly Art 8
Exercise - Taking Stock: Exploring your Limits and Possibilities 10
Suggested Readings 13
Suggested Websites 14
2 Fields of Collaboration 15
The Field Today 19
On the Actual Complexities of Collaboration 21
Exercise - Engaging Collaborators and Creating Research Questions 24
Suggested Readings 26
Suggested Websites 27
3 Emergent Design 30
Exercise - Intentional Reciprocity 32
Uncertainty and the Collaborative Process 34
Ethics and Ethical Commitments 36
Exercise - Developing Project Codes of Ethics 39
Recognition or Anonymity? 40
Exercise - Ethics, IRBs, and Other Subjects 41
Issues of Authority: Ethnographer as Facilitator, Research Participant as Counterpart 44
Exercise - Revisiting Project Limits and Possibilities 46
Suggested Readings 47
Suggested Websites 48
4 Engagement: Participant Observation and Observant Participation 50
Exercise - One Scene, Many Positions 54
Participation 56
Interlude: Equipment Check 61
From Participant Observation to Observant Participation 64
Fieldnotes: From Definitions, Meanings, and Practices to Storied Observations 66
Exercise - Developing Your Own (Fieldnotes) Style 69
On Fieldnote Forms 72
Exercise - Writing With 75
By Way of Conclusion . . . 77
Suggested Readings 80
Suggested Websites 80
5 Interviews and Conversations 84
Living with Interviews 87
Exercise - Issues for Interviews 89
The Changing Nature of Interviews 94
Exercise - Interviews as Conversations 97
Interviews (and Conversations) in Ethnographic Research 98
Exercise - Talking about Transcripts 104
Suggested Readings 108
Suggested Websites 109
6 Inscriptions: On Writing Ethnography 113
Exercise - Making Sense of Materials 116
"What is Ethnography?" Redux: On the Emergence of Contemporary Ethnographic Forms 120
Exercise - Writing Ethnography 126
Toward Collaborative Writing and Transformation 129
Exercise - Collaborative Writing 131
Suggested Readings 134
Suggested Websites 135
Index 138