Ethnography Essentials: Designing, Conducting, and Presenting Your Research [Paperback]

A comprehensive and practical guide to ethnographic research, this book guides you through the process, starting with the fundamentals of choosing and proposing a topic and selecting a research design. It describes methods of data collection (taking notes, participant observation, interviewing, identifying themes and issues, creating ethnographic maps and tables and charts, and referring to secondary sources) and analyzing and writing ethnography (sorting and coding data, answering questions, choosing a presentation style, and assembling the ethnography). Although content is focused on producing written ethnography, many of the principles and methods discussed here also apply to other forms of ethnographic presentation, including ethnographic film.

Designed to give basic hands-on experience in the overall ethnography research process, Ethnography Essentials covers a wealth of topics, enabling anyone new to ethnography research to successfully explore the excitement and challenges of field research.

Preface vii

The Author xiii

Part 1 The Why and What of Ethnography 1

1 What is Ethnography? 3

Ethnography: The Engaged, Firsthand Study of Society and Culture in Action 4

A Brief History 4

How Ethnography Has Changed: Doing Contemporary Ethnography 8

Ethnography as Firsthand Research 12

Ethnographer as Research Instrument 13

Collaboration as Research Model: Ethnographer as Student 15

2 Choosing an Ethnographic Topic 19

Where to Look for Possible Topics 22

Ethnographic Topics: Studying Places, People, or Events 23

The Benefits of a Relatively Specific Focus 23

Thinking About the Nonobl32