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.Luke Eric Lassiter is Professor of Humanities and Anthropology and Director of Marshall University’s Graduate Humanities Program, USA. His books include The Chicago Guide to Collaborative Ethnography (2005) and Invitation to Anthropology (4th edition, 2014). In 2007, he founded the journal Collaborative Anthropologies and served as its editor or co-editor until 2013.

• Preface x1 Introduction: Conceptualizing Ethnography 1Ethnography is as Personal as it Gets 4Ethnography is Collaborative 5Ethnography is Hermeneutic 6Ethnography is Creative and Constitutive 7Ethnography Grapples with the Idea of Culture, however Deeply Compromised 8Ethnography is Mostly Art 8Exercise – Taking Stock: Exploring your Limits and Possibilities 10Suggested Readings 13Suggested Websites 142 Fields of Collaboration 15The Field Today 19On the Actual Complexities of Collaboration 21Exercise – Engaging Collaborators and Creating Research Questions 24Suggested Readings 26Suggested Websites 273 Emergent Design 30Exercise – Intentional Reciprocity 32Uncertainty and the Collaborative Process 34Ethics and Ethical Commitments 36Exercise – Developing Project Codes of Ethics 39Recognition or Anonymity? 40Exercise – Ethics, IRBs, and Other Subjects 41Issues of Authority: Ethnographer as Facilitator, Research Participant as Counterpart 44Exercise – Revisiting Project Limits and Possibilities 46Suggested Readings 47Suggested Websites 484 Engagement: Participant Observation and Observant Participation 50Exercise – One Scene, Many Positions 54Participation 56Interlude: Equipment Check 61From Participant Observation to Observant Participation 64Fieldnotes: From Definitions, Meanings, and Practices to Storied Observations 66Exercise – Developing Your Own (Fieldnotes) Style 69On Fieldnote Forms 72Exercise – Writing With 75By Way of Conclusion . . . 77Suggested Readings 80Suggested Websites 805 Interviews and Conversations 84Living with Interviews 87Exercise – Issues for Interviews 89The Changing Nature of Interviews 94Exercise – Interviews as Conversations 97Interviews (and Conversations) in Ethnographic Research 98Exercise – Talking about Transcripts 104Suggested Readings 108Suggested Websites 1096 Inscriptions: On Writing Ethnography 113Exercise – Making Sense of Materials 116“What is Ethnography?” Redux: On the Emergence of Contemporary Ethnographic Forms 120Exercise – Writing Ethnography 126Toward Collaborative Writing and Transformation 129Exercise – Collaborative Writing 131Suggested Readings 134Suggested Websites 135Index 138