Exploring Everyday Life: Strategies for Ethnography and Cultural Analysis

by Billy Ehn Umeå University, Orvar Löfgren Lund University, Richard Wilk Indiana University

Overview

The numerous tasks and routines that shape our daily existence can seem mundane, even invisible—and yet they play an extremely powerful role in structuring and reproducing society. Exploring Everyday Life casts light on these so-called trivialities, serving as both a guide to the invisible world of the everyday and an instruction manual for first-time explorers.

Ehn, Lofgren, and Wilk demonstrate how to use a broad array of ethnographic tools to discover, map, and document new and unexplored territories and guide readers through the process of cultural analysis. Their concrete examples shed light on how a study or paper assignment can evolve and point to how cultural analysis of everyday life can be practically applied in business, government, and other arenas outside of academia.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780759124066
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	07/23/2015
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	162
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Billy Ehn is professor emeritus of ethnology at Umeå University in Sweden. He is co-author, with Orvar Löfgren, of The Secret World of Doing Nothing.Orvar Löfgren is professor emeritus of ethnology at Lund University in Sweden. His publications include On Holiday: A History of Vacationing. Richard Wilk is Provost’s Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University. His publications include Fast Food/Slow Food and Economies and Cultures (second edition, with Lisa Cliggett.) Richard Wilk and Orvar Löfgren, together with Jessica Chelakis, are co-editors of The Anthropology of Everyday Life, a Rowman & Littlefield series.

Table of Contents

1—Hidden Worlds
Finding the tools
From idea to finished product
The need for a cultural perspective
Analytical strategies
Structure of the book
2—The importance of small things
The first step: getting going
The second step: searching for literature
The third step: collecting material
The fourth step: the analysis
The fifth step: writing
3—Making the familiar strange
Making a first attempt
Looking for entrances
To avoid the predictable
Choosing methodological entrances
New questions and surprising answers
Return to the past
A life-history perspective
The strange home
The home as an art installation
The importance of details and activities
The advantages of limitation
4—Sharing a meal
Table manners
The hidden world of the dinner table
Forming a family meal
Power at the table
Class and family history
Doing mealtime ethnography
Meals as models
5—Do you remember Facebook?
Exploring media in everyday life
Beginning at the end
Analog and digital living
Media taking place
Virtual intimacy
Are you there?
Follow the Objects
6—Catching a mood
Locating the setting
Analytical approaches
Touring the senses
The station as a sensorium
Changing moods
Describing atmospheres
Intimate moods
Changing tracks
Sensing the World
7—Crafting wood and words
Ethnographic writing
Making things with words
Autoethnographic writing
Describing non-verbal experience
Do it by feel
Writing DIY: three versions
Manual
Story
Analysis
Working knowledge
The importance of failures
Working and Writing
8—Demystifying fieldwork
The classic style
Making changes to the classic mold
The jungle ideal
Where is the field now?
Organizing information
Past, present, future
9—Taking cultural analysis out into the world
The surprise effect
Open fieldwork
What’s this thing about culture?
A double cultural analysis
Learning to communicate
Time discipline and teamwork
Three ways of surprising a client
So what?
The critical edge
References

Editorial Reviews

Books that teach the art of analyzing a culture and are easy to read are rare. This book fills that gap by making it an everyday experience. For example, in the third chapter, ‘Making the Familiar Strange,’ the goal is to discover what is new and strange within homes of differing cultures. These small details help ethnographers understand what is going on in the lives of the people that they are studying. In another chapter, ‘Sharing a Meal,’ the authors point out how much can be learned by observing a mealtime with a family. The simple act of eating a meal together varies given the combination of cultural expectations and family histories; this is a real learning experience when viewed from an ethnographic perspective. The study of cultural ideals and mores is fraught with difficulties; the authors have broken this into basics that make ethnography doable and fun. Their examples help learners craft their studies step-by-step, as well as give advice on analysis that is both helpful and insightful. A well-researched and highly readable book for both social science and anthropological interests. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Most academic levels/libraries.

Choice

A rare and wonderfully elaborate hands-on approach to ethnography and cultural analysis; this text is a source of inspiration on how to convert unnoticed everyday phenomena into cultural analysis.

An easy-to-read and practical guide to understanding how anthropologists study the everyday and to what ends they apply their insights. It offers incredibly accessible writing, with short and straightforward chapters and clear examples.

Books that teach the art of analyzing a culture and are easy to read are rare. This book fills that gap by making it an everyday experience. For example, in the third chapter, 'Making the Familiar Strange, ' the goal is to discover what is new and strange within homes of differing cultures. These small details help ethnographers understand what is going on in the lives of the people that they are studying. In another chapter, 'Sharing a Meal, ' the authors point out how much can be learned by observing a mealtime with a family. The simple act of eating a meal together varies given the combination of cultural expectations and family histories; this is a real learning experience when viewed from an ethnographic perspective. The study of cultural ideals and mores is fraught with difficulties; the authors have broken this into basics that make ethnography doable and fun. Their examples help learners craft their studies step-by-step, as well as give advice on analysis that is both helpful and insightful. A well-researched and highly readable book for both social science and anthropological interests. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Most academic levels/libraries.

Exploring Everyday Life is a book to be used, not simply read. The authors encourage us to be more conscious about the unconscious, to see how the ordinary in life is as important as the extraordinary in making us who we are. And they succeed in making ethnographic methods a widely accessible tool of both social analysis and quotidian engagement. Such considered and self-reflective observations of the commonplace not only afford not only a better understanding of the world but allow us to live better within it.

This is a wonderful handbook: the chapters are content rich, with a bevy of excellent examples. The authors offer concrete and specific attention to proceeding with research on cultural meaning, cultural objects, and cultural fields. It will be a valuable addition for any number of classes at both the undergraduate and graduate levels: qualitative methods, ethnography, a course on writing in the social sciences, or ones focused on culture, micro-sociology, and/or everyday life.

From the Publisher

An easy-to-read and practical guide to understanding how anthropologists study the everyday and to what ends they apply their insights. It offers incredibly accessible writing, with short and straightforward chapters and clear examples.

Georgina Drew

Exploring Everyday Life is a book to be used, not simply read. The authors encourage us to be more conscious about the unconscious, to see how the ordinary in life is as important as the extraordinary in making us who we are. And they succeed in making ethnographic methods a widely accessible tool of both social analysis and quotidian engagement. Such considered and self-reflective observations of the commonplace not only afford not only a better understanding of the world but allow us to live better within it.

David W. Montgomery

A rare and wonderfully elaborate hands-on approach to ethnography and cultural analysis; this text is a source of inspiration on how to convert unnoticed everyday phenomena into cultural analysis.

Morten Kyed

Books that teach the art of analyzing a culture and are easy to read are rare. This book fills that gap by making it an everyday experience. For example, in the third chapter, ‘Making the Familiar Strange,’ the goal is to discover what is new and strange within homes of differing cultures. These small details help ethnographers understand what is going on in the lives of the people that they are studying. In another chapter, ‘Sharing a Meal,’ the authors point out how much can be learned by observing a mealtime with a family. The simple act of eating a meal together varies given the combination of cultural expectations and family histories; this is a real learning experience when viewed from an ethnographic perspective. The study of cultural ideals and mores is fraught with difficulties; the authors have broken this into basics that make ethnography doable and fun. Their examples help learners craft their studies step-by-step, as well as give advice on analysis that is both helpful and insightful. A well-researched and highly readable book for both social science and anthropological interests. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Most academic levels/libraries.

Choice Reviews

This is a wonderful handbook: the chapters are content rich, with a bevy of excellent examples. The authors offer concrete and specific attention to proceeding with research on cultural meaning, cultural objects, and cultural fields. It will be a valuable addition for any number of classes at both the undergraduate and graduate levels: qualitative methods, ethnography, a course on writing in the social sciences, or ones focused on culture, micro-sociology, and/or everyday life.

Amy L. Best

Books that teach the art of analyzing a culture and are easy to read are rare. This book fills that gap by making it an everyday experience. For example, in the third chapter, ‘Making the Familiar Strange,’ the goal is to discover what is new and strange within homes of differing cultures. These small details help ethnographers understand what is going on in the lives of the people that they are studying. In another chapter, ‘Sharing a Meal,’ the authors point out how much can be learned by observing a mealtime with a family. The simple act of eating a meal together varies given the combination of cultural expectations and family histories; this is a real learning experience when viewed from an ethnographic perspective. The study of cultural ideals and mores is fraught with difficulties; the authors have broken this into basics that make ethnography doable and fun. Their examples help learners craft their studies step-by-step, as well as give advice on analysis that is both helpful and insightful. A well-researched and highly readable book for both social science and anthropological interests. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Most academic levels/libraries.

CHOICE