Stabilizing Change in Ethnography Inquiry

Session Submission Type: Paper Session

Abstract

As ethnographers, we occupy a space of ongoing creation. This panel explores how ethnographers move from collecting to publishing stories. When we reach for the fabulous in ordinary lives, we open up possibilities for understanding culture in multiple, meaningful ways. We explore processes of turning information, histories, data, memories, and experiences into organized prose and other presumably fixed representations. We explore classic, emergent, and refashioned genres and media through which to write our cultural stories.

Sub Unit

• Ethnography Division

Chair

• Elaine Jenks, West Chester Univ

Individual Presentations

• Passing Bandwagons: Theoretical Fads, Fabulous Insights, and the Illusory Stability of Ethnographic Concepts - Patricia Sotirin, Michigan Technological Univ

• Capturing Changes Across the Years: Two Decades of Ethnographic Writing - William Rawlins, Ohio University; Elaine Jenks, West Chester Univ

• Moving from Art or Science to Art and Science: Crystallization in Ethnographic Inquiry - Laura Ellingson, Santa Clara University

• Giving our Work Legs: Walking Back into Research Communities to Enrich People’s Lives - Melanie Mills, Eastern Illinois University

Session Organizer

• Laura Ellingson, Santa Clara University