Ethnographic Writing: Practices of Research and Representation

Undergraduate / Graduate

This course gives students opportunities to develop their own craft of ethnography through hands-on research and writing and in-depth explorations of recent ethnographic work. Ethnography, "the writing of a people," by definition, refers to groups of people as its object and to processes through which an ethnographer attempts to represent such groups. It also refers to academic texts that are the product of an ethnographer's representational efforts. In this course, students will engage with ethnography multivalently - as research practice, analytical generalization, and literary product. We will reflect upon processes of representation through which ethnographers apply their findings to groups (implicitly or explicitly) and the choices and interpretations they make along the way. Some questions we will ask are: How does the ethnographer deploy particular signifiers, such as modes of communication, spatial and architectural configurations, and historical contexts to make arguments? How is language used to represent experience convincingly? With these questions in mind, we will approach book and article-length ethnographies focusing on four expansive themes - migration, global interconnectivity, nation-states, and neoliberalism. Our readings will inform students' development of their own ethnographic practices. This course will be especially helpful to MA and advanced undergraduate students engaged in the production of ethnographic theses.