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Ethnography and the Crisis of Context in Studies of Media, Science and Technology

Bibliographic Data

ID5772332
AuthorsMarkus Schlecker (University of Cambridge, corresponding author), Eric Hirsch (0000-0003-0365-9372, Melanesia and England)
Year2001
Volume14
Issue1
Pages69-87
Publication date2001-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory of the Human Sciences (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0952-6951 • E-ISSN: 1461-720X
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/095269510101400104
PMID17966575
OpenAlexW2147989122
LanguageEN
Citations received37
References cited60

This article examines strands of an intellectual history in Media and Cultural Studies and Science and Technology Studies in both of which researchers were prompted to take up ethnography. Three historical phases of this process are identified. The move between phases was the result of particular displacements and contestations of perspective in the research procedures within each discipline. Thus concerns about appropriate contextualization led to the eventual embrace of anthropological ethnographic methods. The article traces the subsequent emergence of a 'crisis of context' in the deployment of ethnography within these disciplines. The analysis of these historical changes is informed by a particular depiction of Euro-American knowledge conventions. The article suggests that the limits currently perceived for ethnography are a specific instance of the more general limits now recognized for these knowledge conventions

Context (archaeology · Contextualization · Depiction · Epistemology · Ethnography · Linguistics · Perspective (graphical · Social science · Sociology · Sociology of knowledge · Sociology of scientific knowledge · Anthropology · Anthropology: Ethics, History, Culture · Diverse Musicological Studies · History · Science Education and Perceptions

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