(EMBODIED)

ETHNOGRAPHY

Key Concepts in Human Geography Seminar Series

Kelly Dombroski

November 5th 2012

• From Greek ethnos (folk or people) and grapho (to write).

THEN

• Traditionally the one-year in-situ participant observation characteristic of the lone , heroic anthropologist.

• Thick written descriptions, often detailed descriptions of rituals.

NOW

• A methodology of participant observation.

• Focused on understanding and making sense of the relations and practices that make up the everyday life of a particular group.

WHAT IS

ETHNOGRAPHY?

IT IS NOT:

• Interviews, even qualitative ones (although there are ‘ethnographic interviews’ where you observe and participate in the interview process itself as a site of knowledge production).

• Participatory methods, even in-situ ones (although these can play a part in the knowledge making process)

See Herbert 2000

WHAT IS

ETHNOGRAPHY?

• Understanding the (particularly social and cultural) processes and relations that constitute place or space.

• Bodies in space and place

• Objects in space and place

• Power/knowledge and place

• Indigenous communities

• Multi-sited and multi-local ethnographies

• Difficult questions

See Watson and Till 2010

ETHNOGRAPHY

IN GEOGRAPHY

(QUESTIONS)

OUT-THERE

• Documenting ‘the Other’

• Part of a colonial/ state project?

(see Tuhiwai-Smith 2012)

IN-HERE

• Autoethnographies

• Studying up

(see Ellis and Bochner, Anderson, others here…)

SOMETHING ELSE?

ETHNOGRAPHY

IN GEOGRAPHY

(OUT-THERE, IN-

HERE)

• The legacy of the ‘my village’ anthropologist

ETHNOGRAPHY

AND THE

PROBLEM OF

‘SITE’