The Ethnographer's Craft

This course is an introduction to doing ethnographic fieldwork. Class sessions alternate between (1) discussions of key issues and questions in the theory and practice of ethnographic fieldwork, as well as research ethics and regulatory ethics; and (2) workshops devoted to fieldwork exercises: participant observation, interviewing, fieldnotes, archival research, oral history, multi-modal and virtual methods. Students build skills to design and conduct ethnographic research projects, while developing a critical appreciation of the possibilities and limits of ethnographic research methods to help them understand and engage with the world.