Advancing the Value of Ethnography

Tag: methodology

Knowing a Country: A Post-Brexit Polemic

Knowing a Country: A Post-Brexit Polemic

"There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen." —Lenin My country has changed so dramatically in the last few days that I don’t know where to start. I don’t know if I even know my own country anymore. I am reeling. Shocked. Dismayed. Worried. I am not alone in...

Craft, Value, and The Fetishism of Method

Craft, Value, and The Fetishism of Method

In order to set the scene for the panel on methods, I will be drawing on C Wright Mills’ injunction to avoid the fetishism of method. Mills urges us to think about our methods in terms of a process of craft production. I want to explore what key elements of this craft might be, beyond the usual...

Practice, Products and the Future of Ethnographic Work

Practice, Products and the Future of Ethnographic Work

Ethnographic work in industry has spent two decades contributing to making products that matter in a range of industry contexts. This activity has accounted for important successes within industry. From the standpoint of ethnographic practice, however, the discursive infrastructure that has been...

Tutorial: Ethnographic Research Design

Tutorial: Ethnographic Research Design

Ethnography is closely associated with the core qualitative methods of interviewing and observation. But ethnographers in business often work with a broad range of other methods, from video and diary studies to...

Creating Ethnography

Creating Ethnography

What is an anthropologist? What does an ethnographer actually do? I used to believe that my own answers to these questions were sufficient. In reality, however, the existential dilemma at the foundation of any institution—academic, professional, or otherwise—is a socially constructed affair. In...