Doing Ethnographies

"Crang and Cook provide a well-written practical guide to doing ethnographic research in the broadest sense of the term. They begin with a useful discussion of what ethnographic research entails, especially in human geography, and how it fits in the broader realm of social research in a postmodern context. Their discussion of validating truth claims in qualitative research is especially valuable."

--CHOICE


Doing Ethnographies is an introductory and applied guide to ethnographic methods. It focuses on those methods - participant observation, interviewing, focus groups, and video/photographic work - that allow us to understand the lived, everyday world ′out there.′

In five chapters it presents a systematic overview of: first principles, preparing for fieldwork, constructing ethnographic information, analyzing field materials, and writing.

This is a guide to the issues and methods which have to be considered when doing an ethnography. Informed by the authors fieldwork experience, it demonstrates how methods work in the field and prepares the first-time ethnographer for the loss of control and direction often experienced. This is a practical guide to methods in the field, to the relation between theory, practice, and writing.