On the Rhetoric and Politics of Ethnographic Methodology

Bibliographic Data

ID9768591
AuthorsJ Katz (0000-0002-2649-610X, University of California, Los Angeles, corresponding author)
Year2004
Volume595
Issue1
Pages280-308
Publication date2004-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7162 • E-ISSN: 1552-3349
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0002716204267475
OpenAlexW2148960931
LanguageEN
Citations received32
References cited57

In a variety of ways, all ethnographies are politically cast and policy relevant. Each of three recurrent political rhetorics is related to a unique set of fieldwork practices. Ethnographies that report holistically on journeys to “the other side” build policy/political significance by contesting popular stereotypes. Theoretical ethnographies draw on political imagination to fill in for a lack of variation in participant observation data and to model an area of social life without attempting to rule out alternative explanations. Comparative analytic studies build political relevance by revealing social forces that are hidden by local cultures. Each of these three genres of ethnographic methodology faces unique challenges in relating fieldwork data to politically significant explanations. By shaping the ethnographer’s relations to subjects and readers, each methodology also structures a distinctive class identity for the researchers—as worker, as aristocrat, or as bourgeois professional

Aesthetics · Bourgeoisie · Epistemology · Ethnography · Identity (music · Linguistics · Participant observation · Political science · Politics · Relevance (law · Rhetoric · Set (abstract data type · Social science · Sociology · Variety (cybernetics · Anthropology · Emotional Labor in Professions · Gender Studies · Law · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics · Social and Cultural Dynamics

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