Ethnographic Engagements: Encounters with the Familiar and the Strange

Description

Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents Acknowledgements Preface Introduction: Why fighting familiarity matters Strategies for fighting familiarity The familiarity problem Our intellectual standpoints The empirical examples The structure of the book Chapter 1: Core themes Ethnography Key themes Two powerful concepts The gradient of unfamiliarity The epistemology of ignorance Strategies for better ethnography Revisiting insightful ethnographies from the past Studying the empirical topic in other cultures Focusing on ‘different’ actors Studying the topic in an unfamiliar setting Being self-consciously alert for sexism or racism or ageism or heteronormativity in the setting Adopting standpoints Middle-range concepts Permanent recordings Phenomenology and ethnomethodology Conclusion Chapter 2: Good questions and good designs Not empty but open Foreshadowed problems Implementing the research questions Research ‘questions’ and research ‘design’ Conclusions Chapter 3: Access, openings and encounters Access Initial encounters Initial encounters Conclusion: Finding one’s feet Chapter 4: Initial analysis and focusing strategies Inductive and deductive reasoning Abductive reasoning Initial data analysis Conclusion Chapter 5: Revisiting data collection Fresh strategies Sound Looking Absences Practical activities Ignorance(s) and non-knowledge Multiple mobilities: Embodiment in the ‘world on the move’ Moving bodies Transfer points and liminal places Virtual movements Studying moving informants by moving with them Imagined and anticipated movements Memories of past movements The study of places that do and do not move Objects that can be followed Time-space diaries Fieldnotes in the main phase of fieldwork Fieldnotes and boundary objects Liminality Conclusion Chapter 6: Organising and analysing Coding Accounts Standpoints, positionality and reflective practice Conclusion Chapter 7: Reading and reflecting Ethnographic genres Fieldwork ‘confessions’ The academic autobiography or life study The autoethnography Reading these three genres Conclusions Chapter 8: Writing the unfamiliar The doctoral thesis Journal articles and book chapters The monograph New forms of output and of text Poems A play for three voices Fiction Conclusion Chapter 9: Leaving the field Those who never had a separate ‘field’ The study, the re-study and the much-studied ssite Leaving ‘Deciding’ to leave The careful review Organising and communicating the exit Documenting the exit Challenging the accumulated familiarity Recordings and documents Middle-range concepts Taking race and ethnicity seriously Gender Other actors Three ‘reading’ strategies Conclusion Chapter 10: Epilogue Bibliography Index