Contemporary ethnographic practice and the value of serendipity

Ethnographic practice and serendipity

Bibliographic Data

ID18965124
AuthorsI Rivoal (0000-0003-1265-2500, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), Salazar Noel B (0000-0002-8346-2977, KU Leuven), Noel B Salazar (Cultural Mobilities Research (CuMoRe); University of Leuven; Parkstraat 45, bus 3615; BE-3000; Leuven; Belgium)
Year2013
Volume21
Issue2
Pages178-185
Publication date2013-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0964-0282 • E-ISSN: 1469-8676
PublisherBerghahn Books (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1469-8676.12026
OpenAlexW1847964736
LanguageEN
Citations received80
References cited18

Serendipity, ‘the art of making an unsought finding’, is a much sought after scientific ideal. In anthropology, the epistemological weight placed on serendipity goes beyond mere sagacious discoveries because it is deemed to shape the ethnographic process. Dwelling on decades of de-construction of fieldwork as both a temporal and spatial unity, recent claims urge the discipline to shift from a quest for alternative social and cultural cosmologies to a journey that explores uncharted issues. This introduction lays out some of the new fieldwork conceptions and practices, which are analysed in depth by three ‘young scholars’ in the papers that follow

Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Ethnography · Ideal (ethics) · Serendipity · Sociology · Value (mathematics) · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Philosophy · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics

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