Publisher's Synopsis
This collection brings together readings from the vast range of ethnographic perspectives and practices to offer a multi-dimensional, detailed exploration of the 'theory' and 'practice' of ethnographic research, with a major emphasis on the contemporary application of the same. This is undertaken with the objective of offering a single, comprehensive teaching and research resource for those interested in this approach to data collection and analysis. The collection comprises four volumes that will collectively: i) consider what constitutes 'contemporary ethnography' as a research tool; ii) critically discuss the definitional debates surrounding ethnography; iii) illustrate how ethnography can be used in contemporary social science research where a significant emphasis is placed on the everyday, the virtual and the visual; and finally iv) reflect upon the practical, methodological, analytical and ethical aspects of current ethnographic research practice.
Volume 1: Contemporary Ethnographies: Transformation, Change and Continuities
Volume 1 aims to explore what constitutes 'contemporary ethnography'. The core starting point is that it is better to think of 'ethnographies' rather than any single or simple approach or method.
Volume 2: Current Ethnographic Practices: Working in the 'Contemporary Field'
In Volume 2 the focus is on those works that emphasise, and critically examine, the 'practice' of 'doing' ethnography within the present-day context. Here, again, the selection of material is driven by a concern with continuities and discontinuities in contemporary approaches to ethnography. The focus is on the application, extension and revision of 'classic' approaches to the contemporary world: on how ethnographies have become attuned to the dynamics of the everyday as that has come to be.
Volume 3: Digital Ethnography: Researching Online Worlds
Volume 3, focusing on the ascendancy of digital and virtual ethnography in recent years, serves as an exemplar of a primary concern of this collection: that of exploring developments in the approach, institutional/disciplinary developments, and more general social changes.
Volume 4: Contemporary Ethnographic Analysis: Interpretation, Meaning and Representation
Analysis, interpretation, representation and 'making meaning' of and from ethnographic data are the central concerns of Volume 4. The volume contains an array of papers that reflect how substantive and practical concerns shape processes of analysing ethnographic data and, as with the earlier volumes, includes papers from a variety of epistemological starting points.
