Doing Ethnographies

Abstract

Doing Ethnographies is an introductory and applied guide to ethnographic methods. It focuses on those methods - participant observation, interviewing, focus groups, and video/photographic work - that allow us to understand the lived, everyday world 'out there.' In five chapters it presents a systematic overview of: first principles, preparing for fieldwork, constructing ethnographic information, analyzing field materials, and writing. This is a guide to the issues and methods which have to be considered when doing an ethnography. Informed by the authors fieldwork experience, it demonstrates how methods work in the field and prepares the first-time ethnographer for the loss of control and direction often experienced. This is a practical guide to methods in the field, to the relation between theory, practice, and writing.