Doing Ethnography Today

Doing Ethnography Today explores the methodologies and theories behind contemporary, collaborative ethnography and provides an opportunity to cultivate experience with included exercises. • Presents ethnography as creative and artful rather than analytical or technical • Emphasises the collaborative nature of ethnography • Structured exercises cultivate practical experience • Includes a discussion on indexing and interpreting project materials • Provides guidance on interview questions and selecting appropriate field equipment

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