Style Matters: Ethnography as Method and Genre

Abstract

This article examines the potential for narrative style to reposition experience as central to the anthropological project. A disciplinary dichotomy between form and substance in ethnographic writing has privileged a discursive turn away from lived experience, the bedrock of ethnographic data. Drawing on the insights of experimental ethnography and pragmatist philosophy, this article critiques this dichotomy, arguing for the methodological importance of narrative style in ethnographic writing both as an evocation of fieldwork experience and as an act of authentic political engagement. This article will draw on examples from the author's work in Costa Rica and New York City. [

Before the ruins: Love, death, and the unmaking of place in neoliberalizing Algeria

“…By lingering in the material, sensual, and affective dimensions of the street, I respond to Russell Sharman's call for ethnographers “to be place‐makers”—that is, to use ethnography's narrative style as well as the ethnographer's own experience “to evoke the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feel of a place” (Sharman , 118) such that the experiential dimensions of ethnography as method are incorporated into the writing conventions of ethnography as genre (see also Kapchan ; Stoller ). I also build on an emerging scholarship of “slow ethnography” that “waits to see as things unfold in a moment” (Stewart , 194) and “leans into its descriptive objects with an eye to their hardenings into something recognizable … or failures to endure” (195).…”

Representing Ethnographic Data Through the Epistolary Form

“…It commences with the process by which ethnographically derived knowledge may be translated into the epistolary as a non-traditional form of research representation to provide a more engaging, expansive, and expressive account of the research and the research process (Barter & Tregidga, 2014;Sharman, 2007;Tedlock, 1991). This is followed by the epistolary component that presents the ethnographically derived research findings from this study on human milk donation.…”

“…Yet, this analytical style is out of step with the method of ethnography, which requires warmth, honesty, intimacy, and vulnerability (Sharman, 2007;Smith & Kleinman, 2010); all of which are building blocks of connection between researchers and participants (Iedema & Carroll, 2015). The fields of feminism, anthropology, and ethnography have already reflected on the role of the researcher in the research process and in the texts produced (Behar, 2007;Narayan, 2007;Sharman, 2007), and the literary techniques since drawn upon have blurred the genres of fiction and non-fiction (Narayan, 2007). These narrative ethnographies explore the dynamics of co-constructed knowledge and interaction of Self/Other in the field, which is also conveyed in the very structure and style of text itself (Behar, 1996;Tedlock, 1991).…”

“…Through the epistolary work presented in this article, I heed the call for ethnographically derived texts to engage our audiences in the same experience that engaged us as researchers (Sharman, 2007). One of the primary purposes of letter writing is to bring correspondents to be more present into each others' lives, and facilitate "interacting with," or "reaching out to" audiences (Bower, 2000;Chawansky, 2010;Stanley, 2004;White et al, 2007).…”

“…A particular narrative style is privileged in academic research and publishing, one that removes the protagonist (the researcher) and her values from the "facts" that are produced (Barter & Tregidga, 2014;Law, 2004). Yet, this analytical style is out of step with the method of ethnography, which requires warmth, honesty, intimacy, and vulnerability (Sharman, 2007;Smith & Kleinman, 2010); all of which are building blocks of connection between researchers and participants (Iedema & Carroll, 2015). The fields of feminism, anthropology, and ethnography have already reflected on the role of the researcher in the research process and in the texts produced (Behar, 2007;Narayan, 2007;Sharman, 2007), and the literary techniques since drawn upon have blurred the genres of fiction and non-fiction (Narayan, 2007).…”