Doing Ethnography Today

Elizabeth Campbell is Assistant Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at Marshall University’s College of Education and Professional Development, USA. Before moving to academe, she worked in community development as a folklorist, writer, and museum curator.

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

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