The Ethnographer's Way: A Handbook for Multidimensional Research Design

by Kristin Peterson, Valerie Olson

Overview

The Ethnographer’s Way guides researchers through the exciting process of turning an initial idea into an in-depth research project. Kristin Peterson and Valerie Olson introduce “multidimensioning,” a method for planning projects that invites scholars to examine their research interests from all angles. Researchers learn to integrate seemingly disparate groups, processes, sites, and things into a unified conceptual framework. The handbook’s ten modules walk readers step-by-step, from the initial lightbulb moment to constructing research descriptions, planning data gathering, writing grant and dissertation proposals, and preparing for fieldwork. Designed for ethnographers and those working across disciplines, these modules provide examples of multidimensional research projects with exercises readers can utilize to formulate their own projects. The authors incorporate group work into each module to break the isolation common in academic project design. In so doing, Peterson and Olson’s handbook provides essential support and guidance for researchers working at all levels and stages of a project.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781478030157
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	05/31/2024
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Kristin Peterson is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, and author of Speculative Markets: Drug Circuits and Derivative Life in Nigeria, also published by Duke UniversityPress.

Valerie Olson is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, and author of Into the Extreme: U.S. Environmental Systems and Politics beyond Earth.

Table of Contents

List of Tables, Examples, Figures, and Formulas  xi
Prelude. Why and How to Use This Handbook  xvii
Acknowledgments  xxvii
Introduction. Multidimensional Concept Work  1
Interlude 1. Creating a Collective Concept Workspace  31
Module 1. Imagine the Research  43
Module 2. Focues on Literatures  69
Module 3. Map Concepts  95
Module 4. Create Multidimensional Concept Combos  111
Module 5. Describe Your Research  139
Module 6. Perceive Your Multidemensional Object  167
Interlude 2. The Inquiry Zones  191
Module 7. The Scoping Zone  195
Module 8. The Connecting Zone  223
Module 9. The Interacting Zone  247
Module 10. Mobilize Your Research Project Grid  273
Postlude. Resting, Reflecting, Preparing to Begin Anew  301
Appendix 1. Scheduling the Modules for Academic Quarters and Semesters  303
Appendix 2. Wilkinson’s Partially Filled Research Project Grid  305
Glossary  309
Notes  315
Bibliography  321
Index
 

Editorial Reviews

The Ethnographer’s Way is an outstanding guide for students to investigate their own set of desires for places, questions, and theories that can become the conceptual glue that holds a project together for proposals, fieldwork, and writing. Deeply attentive to the psychological difficulty of imagining a truly ethnographic project before the fieldwork has been done, it is a manual for transforming the feeling of being overwhelmed into insight. This is a much-needed book for which there is no equivalent.

Drugs for Life: How Pharmaceutical Companies Define Our Health - Joseph Dumit

Offering an agenda for contemporary ethnographic research design that finally brings our disciplinary methods in line with current ethnographic theory, The Ethnographer’s Way provides a radically transformed cartography for research. This exceptional book will become canonical for its meticulously tested step-by-step instructions, its thoughtful, generous, and generative set of solutions, and the possibilities it will open up in the academy.

Plastic Bodies: Sex Hormones and Menstrual Suppression in Brazil - Emilia Sanabria

Offering an agenda for contemporary ethnographic research design that finally brings our disciplinary methods in line with current ethnographic theory, The Ethnographer’s Way provides a radically transformed cartography for research. This exceptional book will become canonical for its meticulously tested step-by-step instructions, its thoughtful, generous, and generative set of solutions, and the possibilities it will open up in the academy.”—Emilia Sanabria, author of, Plastic Bodies: Sex Hormones and Menstrual Suppression in Brazil

“The Ethnographer’s Way is an outstanding guide for students to investigate their own set of desires for places, questions, and theories that can become the conceptual glue that holds a project together for proposals, fieldwork, and writing. Deeply attentive to the psychological difficulty of imagining a truly ethnographic project before the fieldwork has been done, it is a manual for transforming the feeling of being overwhelmed into insight. This is a much-needed book for which there is no equivalent.”—Joseph Dumit, author of, Drugs for Life: How Pharmaceutical Companies Define Our Health

"[B]y the end, researchers should have all the material they need to develop solid research and grant proposals. Indeed, many of the students in the authors’ courses have won prestigious grants to support their fieldwork. . . . Vivid examples walk readers through the process of identifying a new project’s core concepts, drawing out their multidimensionality and situating them within the scholarly literature — all while bringing these seemingly disparate elements (or dimensions) together into a cogent frame of inquiry."—Adia Benton, Chronicle of Higher Education

From the Publisher

"[B]y the end, researchers should have all the material they need to develop solid research and grant proposals. Indeed, many of the students in the authors’ courses have won prestigious grants to support their fieldwork. . . . Vivid examples walk readers through the process of identifying a new project’s core concepts, drawing out their multidimensionality and situating them within the scholarly literature — all while bringing these seemingly disparate elements (or dimensions) together into a cogent frame of inquiry."

Chronicle of Higher Education - Adia Benton