Political Ethnography
What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power
Political Ethnography
What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power
Scholars of politics have sought in recent years to make the discipline more hospitable to qualitative methods of research. Lauding the results of this effort and highlighting its potential for the future, Political Ethnography makes a compelling case for one such method in particular. Ethnography, the contributors amply demonstrate in a wide range of original essays, is uniquely suited for illuminating the study of politics.
Situating these pieces within the context of developments in political science, Edward Schatz provides an overarching introduction and substantive prefaces to each of the volume’s four sections. The first of these parts addresses the central ontological and epistemological issues raised by ethnographic work, while the second grapples with the reality that all research is conducted from a first-person perspective. The third section goes on to explore how ethnographic research can provide fresh perspectives on such perennial topics as opinion, causality, and power. Concluding that political ethnography can and should play a central role in the field as a whole, the final chapters illuminate the many ways in which ethnographic approaches can enhance, improve, and, in some areas, transform the study of politics.
376 pages | 5 tables | 6 x 9 | © 2009
Anthropology: Cultural and Social Anthropology
Political Science: Political Behavior and Public Opinion, Political and Social Theory
Sociology: Social Change, Social Movements, Political Sociology
Reviews
Table of Contents
Myron J. Aronoff
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Edward Schatz
Introduction / Ethnographic Immersion and the Study of Politics
Part I : Two Traditions of Political Ethnography
Jan Kubik
One / Ethnography of Politics: Foundations, Applications, Prospects
Jessica Allina-Pisano
Two / How to Tell an Axe Murderer: An Essay on Ethnography, Truth, and Lies
Lisa Wedeen
Three / Ethnography as Interpretive Enterprise
Part II : First-Person Research
Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh
Four / When Nationalists Are Not Separatists: Discarding and Recovering Academic Theories While Doing Fieldwork in the Basque Region of Spain
Elisabeth Jean Wood
Five / Ethnographic Research in the Shadow of Civil War
Timothy Pachirat
Six / The Political in Political Ethnography: Dispatches from the Kill Floor
Part III : Ethnography’s Varied Contributions
Katherine Cramer Walsh
Seven / Scholars as Citizens: Studying Public Opinion through Ethnography
Michael G. Schatzberg
Eight / Ethnography and Causality: Sorcery and Popular Culture in the Congo
Cédric Jourde
Nine / The Ethnographic Sensibility: Overlooked Authoritarian Dynamics and Islamic Ambivalences in West Africa
Lorraine Bayard de Volo
Ten / Participant-Observation, Politics, and Power Relations: Nicaraguan Mothers and U.S. Casino Waitresses
Part IV : Placing Ethnography in the Discipline
Enrique Desmond Arias
Eleven / Ethnography and the Study of Latin American Politics: An Agenda for Research
Corey Shdaimah, Roland Stahl, and Sanford F. Schram
Twelve / When You Can See the Sky through Your Roof: Policy Analysis from the Bottom Up
Dvora Yanow
Thirteen / Dear Author, Dear Reader: The Third Hermeneutic in Writing and Reviewing Ethnography
Edward Schatz
Conclusion / What Kind(s) of Ethnography Does Political Science Need?
Works Cited
List of Contributors
Index
Awards
Qualitative and Multi-Methods Section, American Political Science Association: Giovanni Sartori Book Award
Won
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