Ethnographic Research and Analysis
Description
This book reflects on the contemporary use of ethnography across both social and natural sciences, focusing in particular on organizational ethnography, autoethnography, and the role of storytelling. The chapters interrogate and reframe longstanding ethnographic discussions, including those concerning reflexivity and positionality, while exploring evolving themes such as the experiential use of technologies. The open and honest accounts presented in the volume explore the perennial anxieties, doubts and uncertainties of ethnography. Rather than seek ways to mitigate these 'inconvenient' but inevitable aspects of academic research, the book instead finds significant value to these experiences.
Taking the position that collections of ethnographic work are better presented as transdisciplinary bricolage rather than as discipline-specific series, each chapter in the collection begins with a reflection on the existing impact and character of ethnographic research within the author's native discipline. The book will appeal to all academic researchers with an interest in qualitative methods, as well as to advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students.
Reviews / Votes
"I read the groundbreaking anthology with great interest. It captures a suspicion of mine. You cannot understand Being-in-the-world of doing organizational ethnography without also going deep into the inner space-time of your own auto ethnographic journey. It takes a double journey (inward and outward), otherwise it's just creating more duality, avoidance of our own life of anxiety. Somehow the outer story-telling and the untold inner story must come into relationship in our qualitative methods." (David Boje, New Mexico State University, USA)"This book derives from a multidisciplinary conference whose contributors applied ethnographic methods in widely different venues. We gain insights from sociology, social psychology, social policy management and philosophy - in both normative and commercial contexts. The book therefore offers rich bases for comparison allowing an editorial focus on established practices and accepted problems in some disciplines and facilitating application to others. It is thus well set to present the personal dilemmas that ethnography inevitably presents - (hence the book's subtitle) and to offer mutual learning from divergent experience. The result is a rich collection of variations that could easily have produced an uncoordinated mishmash. This has been avoided by the skillful editing of its disparate inputs - all united by a demonstrated regard for ethnography. The result is a contribution to social science that should rightfully set ethnography at the centre of social science endeavour." (Gerald Mars, UCL, UK)
"Tom Vine and colleagues have produced a genuinely thought-provoking contribution to the literature on contemporary ethnographic research. This innovative analysis of the varied uses of ethnography in social research is highly recommended for students and academics alike. Rich in concepts and intellectual reflection, this is an engaging book that those interested in the "ethnographic turn" will love." (John Hassard, University of Manchester, UK)
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Sarah Richards is a senior lecturer at the University of Suffolk, UK, where she teaches childhood and youth studies. She publishes in the field of social policy with particular reference to intercountry adoption policy and adoption narratives. Her recent publications focus on interrogating research methodologies with children.
David Weir is Professor of Intercultural Management at York St John University, UK. He teaches intercultural management and has published widely on organizational culture in the MENA countries and written in a variety of ethnographic styles.