How to Read Ethnography

Description

How to Read Ethnography is an invaluable guide to approaching anthropological texts. Laying bare the central conventions of ethnographic writing, it helps students to develop a critical understanding of texts and explains how to identify and analyse the core ideas in order to apply these ideas to other areas of study. Above all it enables students to read ethnographies anthropologically and to develop an anthropological imagination of their own. Combining lucid explanations with selections from key texts, this excellent guide is ideal reading for those new to the subject or in need of a refresher course.

• Includes excerpts from key ethnographies
• Offers balanced and progressive reader activities and exercises
• Provides reading exercises, a glossary and full chapter summaries
• Teaches an independent approach to the study of anthropology

Reviews

‘The authors are delivering an appealing route for the reading and understanding of ethnography, one that endows the creative powers of ethnography its proper due … Often exciting, and certainly sophisticated, it is a work that introduces profitable means for rethinking major issues in the discipline. On the other hand, when used as a textbook, the experience should certainly lead to lively engagement and classroom debate on the most satisfying of levels. Hart’s remarkable contribution should set the cats among the pigeons in any classroom, or seminar, discussion.’ – Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

Contents

Acknowledgements; A note on the use of words in bold; Introduction: the concerns and distinctiveness of ethnography; Chapter 1: Comparison: the ethnographic outlook; Chapter 2: People in context; Chapter 3: Relationships and meanings; Chapter 4: Narrating the immediate; Chapter 5: Ethnography as argument; Chapter 6: The setting and the audience; Chapter 7: Positioning the author; Chapter 8: Big conversations and patterns of commitment; Conclusion; Glossary; References

Related Subjects

1. Anthropology - Soc Sci
2. Ethnography & Methodology
3. History & Theory of Anthropology