The selection of a particular population or site for ethnographic research is ordinarily related to some unanswered question or outstanding problem in the body of comparative anthropological theory. Personal predilections or connections of researchers...

Ethnography is a term that carries several historically situated meanings. In its most general sense, the term refers to a study of the culture that a given group of people more or less share. The term is double-edged and has implications for both the...

As a written account, an ethnography focuses on a particular population, place and time with the deliberate goal of describing it to others. So, often, did the writings of nineteenth-century explorers, *missionaries, military agents, journalists,...

This approach, introduced in the 1950s and early 1960s by D.Hymes and J.J.Gumperz (see also Pike 1954), is concerned with the analysis of language use ( usage vs use) in its sociocultural setting. In contrast to the then popular linguistic theories of...

Ethnography (ἔθνος ethnos = people and γράφειν graphein = writing) is the genre of writing that presents varying degrees of qualitative and quantitative descriptions of human social phenomena, based on fieldwork. Ethnography presents the...

Paul Atkinson, Amanda Coffey, Sara Delamont, John Lofland and Lyn Lofland (eds.), The Handbook of Ethnography, London: Sage, 2002, xviii + 507 pages. Rather surprisingly The Handbook of Ethnography, edited by three British and two American sociologists, arrives hot on the heels of...

Many of the ongoing difficulties teachers face revolve around the "translation" of disciplinary knowledge-especially critical theory-into pedagogical praxis. It often seems that our teaching lags behind our theoretical knowledge by about two decades, and sometimes we wonder if it will ever catch up. This...

Jamaica's Port Royal was a bustling town known as the "wickedest city on Earth" more than three centuries ago, until an earthquake and tsunami largely destroyed it.However, while excavations have unearthed evidence of debauchery by its pirates, the most well-known inhabitants, experts say it was...

This film dives into this offshoot of hip hop culture that comes complete with its own language, rituals, and rites of passage.The narrative of Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme follows the career arc of MC Supernatural, one of the first phenomenons in freestyle rapping. It's...

Reviews the text, Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco, Paul Rabinow and Writing Culture: the Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, edited by James Clifford and George E. Marcus. Defines ethnographic research. Describes how conducting research and all of these different ideas can be transmitted and understood in a number of different ways.