For Ethnography

by Paul Anthony Atkinson

"This text is something of a masterclass in its own right. Few are as well placed to comment on the debates surrounding ethnography - debates which the author had been instrumental in shaping - and to offer a clear and authoritative call-to-arms to future, aspirant ethnographers. It is a passionate but realistic manifesto for those wishing to undertake the craft of ethnography and to do it well. All who read it will benefit."- Sam Hillyard, Durham UniversityThis major book from one of the world's foremost authorities recaptures the classic inspirations of ethnographic fieldwork in sociology and anthropology, reflecting on decades of methodological development and empirical research. It is part manifesto, part guidance on the appropriate focus of the ethnographic gaze.Throughout Atkinson insists that ethnographic research must be faithful to the intrinsic and complex organization of everyday life. An attempt to rescue ethnography from contemporary 'qualitative' research, the book is a corrective to the corrosive effects of postmodernism on the analysis of social organization and social action. Atkinson affirms the value of fieldwork, while incorporating contemporary perspectives on social analysis.Paul Atkinson is Distinguished Research Professor of Sociology at Cardiff University, where he is also Associate Director of the ESRC Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics.

232 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 2014

Reviews

[Conor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite a handful of (typically unobtrusive) typos, this was a well-written and enjoyable read. Atkinson's wit, despite missing the mark on several occasions, is nonetheless sharp and refreshing in a field typically populated by milquetoast and half-hearted "critiques". Atkinson strikes a nice balance where he able to inject some humor into what might otherwise be a dry critique without being outright insulting towards other qualitative researchers, although his failure to address the subject of his critiques by name is sometimes less than commendable. The writing usually avoids the lengthy and navel-gazing enumeration of endless myopic examples that is often found in similar works (although approaches this trend in some points--e.g. 3 pages dedicated to the minute details of glass-blowing practices that have little return for demonstrating his point).

Atkinson makes powerful arguments for a renewed approach to qualitative research that strongly reinforces his call for some analogue to "rigor" in the methodology. In this regard, he offers a convincing rebuttal to the "hard-soft" divide between qualitative and quantitative research. His critique of the interview in particular (which has been largely exaggerated and perhaps misunderstood in subsequent rebuttals to his work) is particularly insightful.

The buck stops here, however. In an emphatic attempt to bolster the image of qualitative research (whose initially low and continually declining esteem Atkinson places squarely on *other* qualitative researchers), he undermines his own argument by making facile (if not patently false) claims about quantitative research, reproducing the same pattern he himself critiques. The puerile and ignorant criticisms of quantitative sampling methods and generalizability are rehashed in very cursory and flippant off-hand comments sprinkled throughout the book on a handful of occasions. No in-depth or scientific discussion that reinforces his claims are offered, again following an established pattern of qualitative researchers who have a questionable grasp on the quantitative methods that are being criticized. Most importantly, Atkinson negates what is truly the only olive branch that could reconcile the gap between qualitative and quantitative methods. He writes, in the scant spaces where he seems to have mustered the courage to address quantitative methods at all (especially in regards to a mixed methods approach) "...there is clearly no merit in treating the qualitative data as an adjunct to quantitative studies, with a vague appeal to rich data or the use of qualitative information merely to illustrate and flash out the bare bones of quantitative findings. Equally, there is little merit in using qualitative case studies merely to establish hypothesis that can then be studied through quantitative research." At no point does Atkinson clarify these absurd claims--presumably because he insists that they is "clear". Nor does he at any point offer an alternative mixed methods framework for the extremely reasonable and insightful framework he here summarily dismisses.

This is in line with the typical Napoleon complex style of writing found in virtually every text on qualitative methods. While Atkinson's critique of various dimensions and directions of qualitative research is indeed insightful, the book lacks a bigger-picture discussion on qualitative methods in general. Chapters 7 and 8 in particular offer admittedly interesting discussions of more concrete ethnographic research methods that are ultimately banal because they fail to answer the question of societal *relevance*. Despite offering the reader (and future sociologist) a masterful framework for moving from lower to higher levels of abstraction, from the micro to the macro (arguably the chief virtue of the entire work, found in the early chapters), the concrete examples leave the reader asking "so what?" Sure: from ethnographic methods, Atkinson (and it is remarkable how often he chooses to cite his own work) is able to identify "generalizable" patterns, but the phenomena often do not appear to have any true significance for society at large. Of course, one should not expect each and every piece of research to offer ground-breaking insights to the field, but truly there are more pressing matters to attend to than finding socializations of similar muscle memory patterns among different professions, crafts, and/or hobbies. In this regard, the reader is left with the impression that ethnographers are characterized by taking themselves and their work altogether too seriously.

This is underscored by Atkinson's abject failure to recognize the extremely harmful historical legacy of anthropology, from which ethnography truly is inspired. The second half of the ethics chapter reads like a data point in a case study on messiah complexes. By reiterating throughout nearly every other chapter that ethnography is "the most ethical research method", Atkinson doubles down on the paternalistic legacy of anthropology, a dying field, that is now in effect transplanted into sociology.

Despite my many reservations, it is hard to overlook Atkinson's scathing and accurate criticisms of many of the most embarrassing trends within qualitative methods. His critique of postmodern representations and the concept of habitus hit the nail on the head in a refreshing nod to any quantitative-minded researchers who follow developments in qualitative studies. His proposal for a renewed outlook on ethics is also well in place. Unfortunately, these insights do not compensate for the serious shortcomings mentioned earlier. I found it difficult to place this between 2 and 3 stars, but the refusal to address ethnography's paternalistic (and ultimately colonialist) legacy and frequent delusional allusions to the "heroic" practice of ethnographers was a decisive factor in the final rating.