Practicing Ethnography: A Student Guide to Method and Methodology

by Lynda Mannik, Karen McGarry

Overview

Building on the "studying up" trend in anthropology, this book offers a theoretically informed guide to ethnographic methods that is also practical in approach, and reflects the challenges and concerns of contemporary ethnography. Students draw from vignettes situated within North America to learn how various methods work in the real world, and how ethnography informs contemporary anthropological theory. Exercises and assignments encourage students to practice these methods in a familiar context, and a sustained focus on visual methodologies offers coverage not found in other books. The result is a text that discusses both practical and theoretical issues in contemporary ethnography while equipping students with a set of transferable skills.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487593124
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	11/20/2017
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Lynda Mannik, PhD. is the editor of Migration by Boat: Discourses of Trauma, Exclusion, and Survival (2016) and author of Photography, Memory, and Refugee Identity: The Voyage of the SS Walnut, 1948 (2013). She currently teaches anthropology at York University in Toronto.
Karen McGarry is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at McMaster University. She is a co-author of Cultural Anthropology: A Problem-Based Approach (2013) and co-editor with Lynda Mannik of Reclaiming Canadian Bodies: Visual Media and Representation (2015).

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction

Part I: Origins and Basics

1. The Origins and Development of Sociocultural Anthropological Fieldwork in North America
2. Participant Observation
3. Ethics and the Politics of Fieldwork
4. Connecting with Others: Interviewing, Conversations, and Life Histories

Part II: Notes, Data, and Representation

5. How to Create Field Notes
6. After Fieldwork–Analyzing Data
7. Writing Up and the Politics of Representation

Part III: Shifting Field Sites

8. Applied Ethnography
9. Autoethnography: The Self and Other Revisited

Part IV: Visual Aids

10. Photo-elicitation: Collaboration, Memory, and Emotions
11. Ethnographic Film as Ethnographic Method
12. Doing Research with and in Virtual Communities: Culture, Community, and the Internet

Glossary of Key Terms
References
Index

What People are Saying About This

Susan Frohlick

"This book offers considerable scope in its explanation of research strategies and the disciplinary context and theoretical grounding of ethnographic methodology, which makes it an attractive textbook for teaching undergraduates. Its diversity of voice and perspectives makes it engaging and dynamic, and the numerous examples of fascinating anthropological fieldwork bring the research process to life."

Melanie Medeiros

"Practicing Ethnography is an excellent introductory text for undergraduate students who are embarking on ethnographic research for the first time. This engaging and accessible book succinctly covers aspects of the research process that are often belabored or overlooked in other methods textbooks. It encourages students to think critically about the opportunities and issues inherent in ethnographic fieldwork."

Editorial Reviews

"In Practicing Ethnography, the authors offer a well-constructed volume created to guide students of cultural anthropology in developing themselves as ethnographer...It provides an extremely useful structure for instructors to base courses on while still being loose enough for one to incorporate their own touches."

—Hilary-Joy Virtanen, Finlandia University, Journal of Folklore Research
"This book offers considerable scope in its explanation of research strategies and the disciplinary context and theoretical grounding of ethnographic methodology, which makes it an attractive textbook for teaching undergraduates. Its diversity of voice and perspectives makes it engaging and dynamic, and the numerous examples of fascinating anthropological fieldwork bring the research process to life."—Susan Frohlick, UBC Okanagan
"Practicing Ethnography is an excellent introductory text for undergraduate students who are embarking on ethnographic research for the first time. This engaging and accessible book succinctly covers aspects of the research process that are often belabored or overlooked in other methods textbooks. It encourages students to think critically about the opportunities and issues inherent in ethnographic fieldwork."—Melanie Medeiros, SUNY Geneseo

From the Publisher

"In Practicing Ethnography, the authors offer a well-constructed volume created to guide students of cultural anthropology in developing themselves as ethnographer...It provides an extremely useful structure for instructors to base courses on while still being loose enough for one to incorporate their own touches."

Journal of Folklore Research - Hilary-Joy Virtanen