Critical ethnography: The reflexive turn

Abstract

This paper explores the recent debates on ethnographic writing by explicating four types of reflexivity: confessional, theoretical, textual, and deconstructive. It then illustrates how the author has incorporated such reflexive practices into his recent ethnographies. The paper generally advocates blending autobiography and ethnography into a ''cultural Marxist'' standpoint. This perspective also draws upon multiple epistemologies and feminist notions of science, and it highlights the importance of writing in ordinary language. Such narrative experimentation aims to replace the old scientific ethnographic realist narrative style with a more reflexive realist narrative style. The author argues that reflexive epistemological and narrative practices will make ethnography a more engaging, useful, public storytelling genre.