Margo Hurwicz’s Reviews > Practical Ethnography: A Guide to Doing Ethnography in the Private Sector > Status Update

Potentially useful summary of ethnographic techniques as applied to business. Nothing new to the experienced ethnographer. I can see why not-anthropologists would like this. Still concerned about the "factist" straw man. And the "what your client doesn't know won't hurt 'em - and might help you" implications.

Potentially useful summary of ethnographic techniques as applied to business. Nothing new to the experienced ethnographer. I can see why not-anthropologists would like this. Still concerned about the "factist" straw man. And the "what your client doesn't know won't hurt 'em - and might help you" implications.

A lot of the content in this book seems useful, even though I have the concerns mentioned previously. I will suspend judgement until I've finished reading it.

I'm having problems with the way this book divides research into "factist" and "interpretive" - assigning ethnography to the interpretive side. There is ethnography out there that concerns itself with what is called factist (& bad) here. My other concern is that one could interpret some of Ladner's advice as recommending that ethnographers deceive their employers / clients.