The Creative Ethnographer's Notebook

The Creative Ethnographer's Notebook offers emerging and trained ethnographers exercises to spark creativity and increase the impact and beauty of ethnographic study. With contributions from both emerging scholars and leading creative ethnographers working in various social science fields (e.g., anthropologists, educators, ethnomusicologists, political scientists, geographers, and others), this volume offers readers a variety of creative prompts that these ethnographers have used in their own work and university classrooms to deepen their ethnographic and artistic practice. The contributions foreground different approaches in creative practice, broadening your range of multimodal ethnographic tools as you design studies, works with collaborators and landscapes, and render your ethnographic findings through a variety of media. Instructors will find dozens of creative prompts to use in a wide variety of classroom settings, including early beginners to experienced ethnographers and artists. The book includes numerous pop-up definitions to key ethnographic terms, eBook links to creative ethnographic examples, possibilities for extending prompts for more advanced anthropologists, and helpful tips across all phases of inquiry projects. This resource can be used by instructors of anthropology and other social sciences to teach students how to engage with creative approaches, as well as how to do better public and engaged anthropology. Artists and arts faculty will also benefit from using this book to inspire culturally attuned artmaking that engages in research, as well as research-based art. Readers will learn how creative ethnography draws on aspects of the literary, visual, sonic and/or performing arts. Information is provided about how scholars and artists, or scholartists, document culture in ways that serve more diverse public and academic audiences.