The Lost Ethnographies

Methodological Insights From Projects That Never Were

By: Robin James Smith (Editor), Sara Delamont (Editor)

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Hardcover | 7 January 2019 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover
192 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
24.1 x 16.1 x 1.2

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$158.40

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The Lost Ethnographies reports on the methodological lessons learnt from ethnographic projects that, viewed superficially, failed. Experienced researchers write about projects they planned, and were excited about, which then never began, had to be abandoned, or took such unexpected directions that it became a different piece of work altogether. The topics and settings are varied and disparate, but the lessons learnt have important similarities. This collection focuses on absences; topics and settings that remain under researched; taken for granted aspects of social life that have not been scrutinized, and finally the potential insights that are gained when absences are carefully examined and explored. Readers will learn a great deal about research design, fundraising, writing up, access negotiations, serendipity in the field, and the complex interaction between the body and the brain of the ethnographer and the realities of ethnographic research. Maximising learning from the 'failings' of ourselves and of others is the positive message of the collection. The most poignant chapters are those in which the author 'returns' to reread and reflect on a past project; something that is not done often enough, partly because it can be painful. The accounts of projects which had to be abandoned or radically changed offer hope to researchers facing difficulties in their own investigations. These reflections, on projects that were never even begun, show how to gain fresh energy and social science insight from apparent rejection, and the collection approaches the whole concept of lost ethnography in provocative ways.

Industry Reviews

Sociologists and other social scientists contribute to the genre of autobiographical writing about ethnographic work by describing projects that never happened, fell apart, or went seriously off track. They reflect on what might have been, and return to the theme of absence. Among their topics are remarks from a lost engagement with the engaging ordinariness of Parkour, losing Bigfoot, flat claps and Dengue Fever: a story of ethnographies lost and found in India, losing students in a school ethnography: anthropology and the puzzle of holism, and finding lost things under the binds of a neglected thesis cover. -- Annotation (c)2019 * (protoview.com) *

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