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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.

Embracing the trope of ethnography as narrative, this chapter uses the mythic story of Bronislaw Malinowski's early career and fieldwork as a vehicle through which to explore key aspects of ethnography's history and development into a distinct form of qualitative research. The reputed "founding father" of the ethnographic approach, Malinowski was a brilliant social scientist, dynamic writer, conceited colonialist, and, above all else, pathetically human. Through a series of intervallic steps -- in and out of Malinowski's path from Poland to the "Cambridge School" and eventually to the western Pacific -- I trace the legacy of ethnography to its current position as a critical, historically informed, and unfailingly evolving research endeavor. As a research methodology that has continually reflected on and revised its practices and modes of presentation, ethnography is boundless. Yet minus its political, ethical, and historical moorings, I argue, the complexities of twenty-first-century society render its future uncertain. ; Published (Publication status) ;

Many qualitative studies in journalism and mass communication research draw on ethnographic methods that originated in anthropology and sociology. These methods involve studying people within their own cultural environment through intensive fieldwork; they emphasize the subjects' frames of reference and understandings of the world. This article uses a comparison between journalism and ethnographic research as a framework for highlighting common problems with manuscripts using this method. It offers veteran ethnographers' tips about what they look for in a manuscript and identifies three ethnographies that are examples of successful application of the method to topics of interest to journal readers.

Sensory ethnography offers an important intervention into the dominance of the conventional 'watching and listening' dynamic often presumed to be at the heart of ethnographic research. This chapter provides an account of sensory ethnography that positions it broadly within the field of qualitative research, locating it as an approach that intersects with a variety of interrelated methodologies. Developing a 'sensory sensibility' means utilizing the role of the senses in conducting research, and demands attention to researchers' own emplacement and reflexivity to the field in their aim of elucidating complex meaning from cultural life. As such, this method offers an expanded approach to embodiment and expression that is inherent to the process of interpretation and negotiation in the ethnographic encounter. Sensory ethnography is then broken down into specific methods that can be incorporated into each of the research phases—design, data collection, analysis, and writing—while being mindful of any artificial distinctions or boundaries between them within the overall research project, as well as presenting some of the ethical and political complexities to be managed while conducting sensory ethnography. The authors then provide case studies of their own research that utilized sensory ethnographic techniques to provide the reader with a more concrete grounding for the application of concepts presented. This chapter concludes with an entreaty for sensory ethnographers to develop practices of exploratory openness and attentiveness to the senses, not solely as resources to be mined for data but as a fundamental product of the ethnographic process.

"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"--