Approaches to Ethnography

Approaches to Ethnography
Author: Colin Jerolmack
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2018
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0190236051

Approaches to Ethnography offers a novel way to think about and teach ethnography. It identifies eight key analytic strategies-or approaches-that ethnographers deploy to decode the social world. Each chapter features a veteran ethnographer reflecting on how one of the approaches shapes their field site selection, observations, and analysis.

Approaches to Ethnography

Approaches to Ethnography
Author: Colin Jerolmack
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2017-10-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0190236078

No ethnographer can record and analyze everything that she encounters in the field. We must make choices about what to look at and how to look at it, which means privileging some aspects of social life while bracketing others. Approaches to Ethnography enumerates the key analytic strategies-which Jerolmack and Khan call approaches-that ethnographers deploy to tame the buzzing confusion of the social world. The book identifies eight approaches that typify ethnography, which it groups and compares along four axes: 1) Micro, organizational, and macro; 2) people and places, and mechanisms; 3) dispositions and situations; and 4) reflexivity. Each approach, it is shown, enables the illumination of a distinct dimension of the social world. Every chapter is written by a seasoned ethnographer who enumerates one of the approaches and reflects on how that approach shapes their field site selection, observations, and analysis. Taken as a whole, the chapters show how these approaches, which operate more like sensitizing devices than theoretical mandates, can play a greater role in guiding the kinds of questions that get asked and answered in the field than whether one adopts an inductive or deductive stance toward theory. Engaging, accessible, and often inspiring, Approaches to Ethnography offers a practical and novel way to teach, evaluate, and conceptualize ethnographic research.

Contemporary Ethnographies

Contemporary Ethnographies
Author: Francisco Ferrándiz
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2020-04-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1000068633

Contemporary Ethnographies is a call to use ethnography in imaginative ways, adjusting to rapidly evolving social circumstances. It is based on a reflexive and theoretically grounded exploration of the author’s two main research projects – the study of the spiritist possession cult of María Lionza in Venezuela, and the analysis of the contemporary exhumation of Civil War (1936–1939) mass graves in contemporary Spain. Ferrándiz critically reviews the labyrinthine and continuous transforming nature of ethnographic engagement. He defends both the need for methodological rigour and the astounding flexibility of ethnography to adjust in creative ways to shifting realities in a dynamic world – a world in which research scenarios multiply, social actors are on the move (physically or digitally), acts of violence proliferate, new technologies are transforming the experience and perception of human life, and the demand, production, circulation and consumption of knowledge is greatly diversified, overshadowing former well established and more hierarchical patterns of diffusion. The book is conceived of as a historically grounded open debate, providing as many certainties as moments of unpredictability and unresolved dilemmas. It is valuable reading for students and scholars interested in ethnographic methods and anthropological theory.

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods
Author: Mike Allen
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Total Pages: 2013
Release: 2017-04-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1483381420

Communication research is evolving and changing in a world of online journals, open-access, and new ways of obtaining data and conducting experiments via the Internet. Although there are generic encyclopedias describing basic social science research methodologies in general, until now there has been no comprehensive A-to-Z reference work exploring methods specific to communication and media studies. Our entries, authored by key figures in the field, focus on special considerations when applied specifically to communication research, accompanied by engaging examples from the literature of communication, journalism, and media studies. Entries cover every step of the research process, from the creative development of research topics and questions to literature reviews, selection of best methods (whether quantitative, qualitative, or mixed) for analyzing research results and publishing research findings, whether in traditional media or via new media outlets. In addition to expected entries covering the basics of theories and methods traditionally used in communication research, other entries discuss important trends influencing the future of that research, including contemporary practical issues students will face in communication professions, the influences of globalization on research, use of new recording technologies in fieldwork, and the challenges and opportunities related to studying online multi-media environments. Email, texting, cellphone video, and blogging are shown not only as topics of research but also as means of collecting and analyzing data. Still other entries delve into considerations of accountability, copyright, confidentiality, data ownership and security, privacy, and other aspects of conducting an ethical research program. Features: 652 signed entries are contained in an authoritative work spanning four volumes available in choice of electronic or print formats. Although organized A-to-Z, front matter includes a Reader’s Guide grouping entries thematically to help students interested in a specific aspect of communication research to more easily locate directly related entries. Back matter includes a Chronology of the development of the field of communication research; a Resource Guide to classic books, journals, and associations; a Glossary introducing the terminology of the field; and a detailed Index. Entries conclude with References/Further Readings and Cross-References to related entries to guide students further in their research journeys. The Index, Reader’s Guide themes, and Cross-References combine to provide robust search-and-browse in the e-version.

Challenges and Solutions in Ethnographic Research

Challenges and Solutions in Ethnographic Research
Author: Tuuli Lähdesmäki
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2020-07-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000093158

Challenges and Solutions in Ethnographic Research: Ethnography with a Twist seeks to rethink ethnography ‘outside the box’ of its previous tradition and to develop ethnographic methods by critically discussing the process, ethics, impact and knowledge production in ethnographic research. This interdisciplinary edited volume argues for a ‘twist’ that supports openness, courage, and creativity to develop and test innovative and unconventional ways of thinking and doing ethnography. ‘Ethnography with a twist’ means both an intentional aim to conduct ethnographic research with novel approaches and methods but also sensitivity to recognize and creativity to utilize different kinds of ‘twist moments’ that ethnographic research may create for the researcher. This edited volume critically evaluates new and old methodological tools and their ability to engage with questions of power difference. It proposes new collaborative methods that allow for co-production and co-creation of research material as well as shared conceptual work and wider distribution of knowledge. The book will be of use to ethnographers in humanities and social science disciplines including sociology, anthropology and communication studies.

Ethnography and Schools

Ethnography and Schools
Author: Yali Zou
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2002-06-25
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0742578976

The ethnographic experience is an indelible venture that continuously redefines one's life. Bringing together important cross-currents in the national debate on education, this book introduces the student or practitioner to the challenges, resources, and skills informing ethnographic research today. From the first chapter describing the cultural foundations of ethnographic research, by George Spindler, the book traces both traditional and new approaches to the study of schools and their communities. Emphasis on discourse, critical pedagogy, and ethnicity are among the many aspects of methodology and educational change emphasized by the contributors.

Organizational Ethnography

Organizational Ethnography
Author: Daniel Neyland
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2007-11-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1446233650

′This is an excellent resource for those interested in studying organizations in both formal and informal contexts′ - Choice Taking readers through the practical history of ethnography from its anthropological origins through to its use in a ever-widening variety of organizational, academic and business contexts, this book covers the whole research project process, starting with research design, and dealing with such practical issues as gaining access, note-taking, project management, analysing one′s data and negotiating an exit strategy. It is highly practical and incorporates a range of case studies, illustrating organisational ethnography at work. This book is an invaluable resource for anyone wanting to plan and conduct their own ethnographic, observational or participant observational research in an organizational context, whatever their level of experience and regardless of whether they are studying a business organization or other types of organization such as schools and hospitals.

Doing Sensory Ethnography

Doing Sensory Ethnography
Author: Sarah Pink
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2015-02-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1473917026

This bold agenda-setting title continues to spearhead interdisciplinary, multisensory research into experience, knowledge and practice. Drawing on an explosion of new, cutting edge research Sarah Pink uses real world examples to bring this innovative area of study to life. She encourages us to challenge, revise and rethink core components of ethnography including interviews, participant observation and doing research in a digital world. The book provides an important framework for thinking about sensory ethnography stressing the numerous ways that smell, taste, touch and vision can be interconnected and interrelated within research. Bursting with practical advice on how to effectively conduct and share sensory ethnography this is an important, original book, relevant to all branches of social sciences and humanities.

Key Concepts in Ethnography

Key Concepts in Ethnography
Author: Karen O′Reilly
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2008-11-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1446202216

"An accessible and entertaining read, useful to anybody interested in the ethnographic method." - Paul Miller, University of Cumbria "A very good introduction to ethnographic research, particularly useful for first time researchers." - Heather Macdonald, Chester University "The perfect introductory guide for students embarking on qualitative research for the first time... This should be of aid to the ethnographic novice in their navigating what is a theoretically complex and changing methodological field." - Patrick Turner, London Metropolitan University An accessible, authoritative, non-nonsense guide to the key concepts in one of the most widely used methodologies in social science: Ethnography, this book: Explores and summarises the basic and related issues in ethnography that are covered nowhere else in a single text. Examines key topics like sampling, generalising, participant observation and rapport, as well as embracing new fields such as virtual, visual and multi-sighted ethnography and issues such as reflexivity, writing and ethics. Presents each concept comprehensively yet critically, alongside relevant examples. This is not quite an encyclopaedia but far more than a dictionary. It is comprehensive yet brief. It is small and neat, easy to hold and flick through. It is what students and researchers have been waiting for.