Ethnography A Theoretically Oriented Practice

This volume presents both a historical exploration of ethnography and a thematic discussion of major trends that, over different periods, have oriented and re-oriented research practice. As it overviews ethnography from different geographic and thematic perspectives, it further explores new lines of ethnographic research, including as feminist ethnography and visual research, that uncover non-traditional routes to anthropological knowledge.

As the great ethnographer E. E. Evans-Pritchard wrote, “Anyone who is not a complete idiot can do fieldwork… but will [his contribution] be to theoretical, or just to factual knowledge?” As Evans-Pritchard highlights and as this book argues, successful ethnography must be connected to  a sophisticated theoretical reflection rooted in social and cultural anthropology.

Chapter 1: Introduction: A Theoretically Oriented Practice

Part I: Grounds for sociocultural anthropology: USA, UK, FR, IT

Chapter 2: Ethnography before ethnography. Genesis and developments of field research in North America

Chapter 3: Before and after Science: Radcliffe-Brown, British social anthropology and the problem of the relatiionship between fieldwork methods, ethnography and theory

Chapter 4: “Ethnography in France”. Ethnographic practices and theories from Marcel Mauss to Marcel Griaule

Chapter 5: The Structural Formula of the Team. Reflections on the Ethnographic Method of Ernesto de Martino

Part II. Anthropology (Theory) vs Ethnography (Fieldwork)

Chapter 6: Illusion of immediate knowledge (immediacy) or spiritual exercise? The dialogic exchange and the Pierre Bourdieu’s ethnography

Chapter 7: “A conspiracy of silence”: George Balandier and the study of African slavery and post-slavery

Chapter 8: The Bridge and the Dance: Situational Analysis in Anthropology

Chapter 9: Politics within Cultural and Social Anthropology

Chapter 10: Stumbling blocks. The irruption of the interpretive approach in twentieth century anthropology

Part III. Visual, Dialogical, Sensorial, Multi-sited ethnography

Chapter 11: The anthropologist’s eye: Ethnography, visual practices, images

Chapter 12: Dennis and Barbara Tedlock. The dialogic turn in anthropology

Chapter 13:  Embodiment and Ethnography

Chapter 14: Exploring Mobility through Mobility. The Challenges of Multi-sited Ethnography from Marcus and Hannerz to nowadays

Part IV: Deconstructions

Chapter 15: Participant observation. The personal commitment in native life: A problematic methodological topos

Chapter 16: The Weberian line of anthropology: George E. Marcus from Writing Culture to Design

Chapter 17: Making the Invisible ethnography Visible. The peculiar relationship between Italian anthropology and feminism

Chapter 18: Beyond the field: literature, theory and ethnographic writing

Vincenzo Matera is Full Professor of Cultural and Social Anthropology in the Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Bologna (Ravenna Campus), Italy. 

Angela Biscaldi is Associate Professor of Cultural and Social Anthropology in the Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milano, Italy.