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Ethnography Unbound: Power and Resistance in the Modern Metropolis.
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1992
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Social ResearchParticipant ObservationEducationTen Original EthnographiesSocial SciencesCultural AnalysisAfrican American StudiesContemporary LifeEthnic StudiesIntersectionalityEthnomethodologyCultureCritical GeographyEthnography UnboundEthnographyAnthropologyPowerful VolumeSocial AnthropologyCultural Anthropology
The volume presents ten ethnographies that examine how people confront contemporary threats and how researchers can study the modern metropolis, framing a multi‑layered dialogue between researcher and researched, participant and observer, educator and educated. The book seeks to explore how participant observation and the extended case method can deepen ethnographic research, posing theoretical and methodological questions that encourage a rethinking of how to study the modern metropolis. The essays, collaboratively written by a senior scholar and ten graduate students, examine facets of American urban life, including AIDS‑focused social movements, anti‑nuclear activism, the roles of Southeast Asian women in immigrant communities, and school programs for African‑American children. Readers will find the book an essential text for studying methodology and contemporary American life.
In this powerful volume, ten original ethnographies explore two important issues: the ways in which people confront the threats and disruptions of contemporary life, and the ways in which researchers can most effectively study the modern metropolis. With its twofold agenda, the volume emerges as a multi-layered dialogue between researcher and researched, participant and observer, educator and educated. These essays, produced in a refreshing collaborative effort by a senior scholar and ten graduate students, examine many facets of American urban life, among them new social movements that mobilize and work on behalf of people with AIDS and that fight against nuclear war; the decisive roles South East Asian women play in building new immigrant communities; and school programs for African-American children. Ethnography Unbound also explores the value of participant observation and the extended case method in social research, underlining how these methodological approaches deepen and enrich scholarship in the social sciences. The book poses theoretical and methodological questions in an open and lucid manner, prodding a rethinking of ethnographic research. Scholars and students alike will find it an essential text for the study of methodology and contemporary American life.