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Ethnography introduces readers to traditions of ethnographic research and writing through detailed discussions of their histories, exploratory designs, representational conventions, and standards of evaluation. While situating ethnography within its original, anthropological context, the book simultaneously introduces new frameworks for grasping its rich and ever expanding practices.

"This volume provides readers with a comprehensive guide to understanding, conceptualizing, and critically assessing ethnographic research reporting in qualitative research"--

As Alan Klima writes in Ethnography #9, "there are other possible starting places than the earnest realism of anthropological discourse as a method of critical thought." In this experimental ethnography of capitalism, ghosts, and numbers in mid- and late-twentieth-century Thailand, Klima uses this provocation to deconstruct naive faith in the "real" and in the material in academic discourse that does not recognize that it is, itself, writing. Klima also twists the common narrative that increasing financial abstractions in economic culture are a kind of real horror story, entangling it with other modes of abstraction commonly seen as less "real," such as spirit consultations, ghost stories, and haunted gambling. His unconventional, distinctive, and literary form of storytelling uses multiple voices, from ethnographic modes to a first-person narrative in which he channels Northern Thai ghostly tales and the story of a young Thai spirit. This genre alchemy creates strange yet compelling new relations between being and not being, presence and absence, fiction and nonfiction, fantasy and reality. In embracing the speculative as a writing form, Klima summons unorthodox possibilities for truth in contemporary anthropology.

What counts as ethnography and what counts as good ethnographic methodology are both highly contested. This volume brings together chapters presenting a diversity of views on some of the current debates and developments in the field. It does not try to present a single coherent view but, through its heterogeneity, illustrates the strength and impact of debate. The topics discussed include participant observation, research roles in fieldwork, access to places and people in research, ethical issues concerning anonymity and intimacy in research, generalization in ethnography, the use of video, developing stronger criteria for autoethnography, and the use of ethnography as a contribution to the generation and modification of indicators. Together the collection illustrates the strength and vitality of ethnography.

The Teaching Writing series publishes user-friendly writing guides penned by authors with publishing records in their subject matter. While ethnographers inevitably write up their findings from the field, many ethnography textbooks focus more on the 'ethno' portion of our craft, and less on developing our 'graph'skills. Gullion fills that gap, helping ethnographers write compelling, authentic stories about their fieldwork. From putting the first few words on the page, to developing a plot line, to publishing, Writing Ethnography offers guidance for all stages of the writing process. Writing prompts throughout the book encourage the development of manuscripts from start to finish. Appropriate for both new and emerging scholars, Writing Ethnography is a useful text for qualitative methods, research methods courses across disciplines

Written in a clear, easy-to-follow style, Ethnography in Organizations evaluates the wide range of ethnographic research that has been--and continues to be--conducted in organizations. Beginning with the classic definition of bureaucracy and rational organization presented by Max Weber, author Helen B. Schwartzman analyzes three main paradigms--functional studies, structural analyses, and interpretive research. Using the Hawthorne Study as a starting point, this useful volume explores such topics as the roles and methods used by organizational ethnographers, the problems and prospects for conducting fieldwork in organizations, the "incorporation" of American life, and the role that everyday, but often overlooked, routines play in the production and reproduction of organizations, institutions, and society. Replete with vivid examples and illustrations taken from both public and private sector settings, Ethnography in Organizations is a must for anyone conducting research in an organizational setting.

"ETHNOGRAPHY #9 looks at Thai spiritual and financial practices, and at the relationship of these local practices to global capitalism's abstraction of monetary value. Through his examination of moneylending, gambling, funeral casinos, and the consultation of spirits and mediums to predict winning lottery numbers, Alan Klima challenges the assumptions of anthropology's "ontological turn" and reveals the limitations of theoretical explanations of capitalist fantasy that are grounded in the rational and the "real." Looking critically at the work done by conventional ethnographic writing in performing the very objectivity and realism that it claims as its method, Klima instead embraces a distinctive literary form of storytelling that hovers between being and not being, presence and absence, fiction and non-fiction, and fantasy and reality"--

"In turn creative thinker and street flaneur, careful planner and adventurer, empathic listener and distant voyeur, recluse writer and active participant: the ethnographer is a multifaceted researcher of social worlds and social life. In this book, sociologists Sarah Daynes and Terry Williams team up to explore the art of ethnographic research and the many complex decisions it requires. Using their extensive fieldwork experience in the United States and Europe, and hours spent in the classroom training new ethnographers, they illustrate, discuss, and reflect on the key skills and tools required for successful research, including research design, entry and exit, participant observation, fieldnotes, ethics, and writing up. Covering both the theoretical foundations and practical realities of ethnography, this highly readable and entertaining book will be invaluable to students in sociology and other disciplines in which ethnography has become a core qualitative research method"--

The contribution of German ethnography to Australian anthropological scholarship on Aboriginal societies and cultures has been limited, primarily because few people working in the field read German. But it has also been neglected because its humanistic concerns with language, religion and mythology contrasted with the mainstream British social anthropological tradition that prevailed in Australia until the late 1960s. The advent of native title claims, which require drawing on the earliest ethnography for any area, together with an increase in research on rock art of the Kimberley region, has stimulated interest in this German ethnography, as have some recent book translations. Even so, several major bodies of ethnography, such as the 13 volumes on the cultures of northeastern South Australia and the seven volumes on the Aranda of the Alice Springs region, remain inaccessible, along with many ethnographically rich articles and reports in mission archives. In 18 chapters, this book introduces and reviews the significance of this neglected work, much of it by missionaries who first wrote on Australian Aboriginal cultures in the 1840s. Almost all of these German speakers, in particular the missionaries, learnt an Aboriginal language in order to be able to document religious beliefs, mythology and songs as a first step to conversion. As a result, they produced an enormously valuable body of work that will greatly enrich regional ethnographies.