Experimenting with Ethnography: A Companion to Analysis

Experimental Futures

by Andrea Ballestero (Editor), Brit Ross Winthereik (Editor)

Experimenting with Ethnography collects twenty-one essays that open new paths for doing ethnographic analysis. The contributors—who come from a variety of intellectual and methodological traditions—enliven analysis by refusing to take it as an abstract, disembodied exercise. Rather, they frame it as a concrete mode of action and a creative practice. Encompassing topics ranging from language and the body to technology and modes of collaboration, the essays invite readers to focus on the imaginative work that needs to be performed prior to completing an argument. Whether exchanging objects, showing how to use drawn images as a way to analyze data, or working with smartphones, sound recordings, and social media as analytic devices, the contributors explore the deliberate processes for pursuing experimental thinking through ethnography. Practical and broad in theoretical scope, Experimenting with Ethnography is an indispensable companion for all ethnographers.

Contributors. Patricia Alvarez Astacio, Andrea Ballestero, Ivan da Costa Marques, Steffen Dalsgaard, Endre Dányi, Marisol de la Cadena, Marianne de Laet, Carolina Domínguez Guzmán, Rachel Douglas-Jones, Clément Dréano, Joseph Dumit, Melanie Ford Lemus, Elaine Gan, Oliver Human, Alberto Corsín Jiménez, Graham M. Jones, Trine Mygind Korsby, Justine Laurent, James Maguire, George E. Marcus, Annemarie Mol, Sarah Pink, Els Roding, Markus Rudolfi, Ulrike Scholtes, Anthony Stavrianakis, Lucy Suchman, Katie Ulrich, Helen Verran, Else Vogel, Antonia Walford, Karen Waltorp, Laura Watts, Brit Ross Winthereik
 

Genres: Anthropology, Technology

Unknown Binding

Published May 1, 2021

Reviews

[Jan D · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of ethnography books are about interviewing, some are about observing and very few are about analyzing data. The field seems to have a rather ambigous relationship with (analysis) methods, as an assumed linear structure and prescriptive steps do not work well with the messy reality of being “in the field” and the data that result from it. This book gives suggestions for analysis of ethnographic data: Every chapter another method, concept, suggestion.
It would have been rather easy to create a collection of abstract concepts and suggest the reader to see the world through that concept (not at least since creating concepts that others use is prestigeous in social sciences). But most of the suggestions are at least somewhat actionable without being prescriptive or boring—appropriately, since that would hardly be “experimenting”.