Contemporary Ethnographies

Contemporary Ethnographies is a call to use ethnography in imaginative ways, adjusting to rapidly evolving social circumstances. It is based on a reflexive and theoretically grounded exploration of the author’s two main research projects – the study of the spiritist possession cult of María Lionza in Venezuela, and the analysis of the contemporary exhumation of Civil War (1936–1939) mass graves in contemporary Spain. Ferrándiz critically reviews the labyrinthine and continuous transforming nature of ethnographic engagement. He defends both the need for methodological rigour and the astounding flexibility of ethnography to adjust in creative ways to shifting realities in a dynamic world – a world in which research scenarios multiply, social actors are on the move (physically or digitally), acts of violence proliferate, new technologies are transforming the experience and perception of human life, and the demand, production, circulation and consumption of knowledge is greatly diversified, overshadowing former well established and more hierarchical patterns of diffusion. The book is conceived of as a historically grounded open debate, providing as many certainties as moments of unpredictability and unresolved dilemmas. It is valuable reading for students and scholars interested in ethnographic methods and anthropological theory.

This ethnographic study of prostitution in the metropolitan city of Dalian, China, explores the lives of rural migrant women working as karaoke bar hostesses, delving into the interplay of gender politics, nationalism, and power relationships that inhere in practices of birth control, disease control, and control of women's bodies.

Multi-Sited Ethnography has established itself as a fully-fledged research method among anthropologists and sociologists in recent years. It responds to the challenge of combining multi-sited work with the need for in-depth analysis, allowing for a more considered study of social worlds. This volume utilizes cutting-edge research from a number of renowned scholars and empirical experiences, to present theoretical and practical facets charting the development and direction of new research into social phenomena. Owing to its clear contribution to a rapidly emerging field, Multi-Sited Ethnography will appeal to anyone studying social actors, including scholars within human geography, anthropology, sociology and development and migration studies.

This collection brings together readings from the vast range of ethnographic perspectives and practices to offer a multi-dimensional, detailed exploration of the ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ of ethnographic research, with a major emphasis on the contemporary application of the same. This is undertaken with the objective of offering a single, comprehensive teaching and research resource for those interested in this approach to data collection and analysis. The collection comprises four volumes that will collectively: i) consider what constitutes ‘contemporary ethnography’ as a research tool; ii) critically discuss the definitional debates surrounding ethnography; iii) illustrate how ethnography can be used in contemporary social science research where a significant emphasis is placed on the everyday, the virtual and the visual; and finally iv) reflect upon the practical, methodological, analytical and ethical aspects of current ethnographic research practice. Volume 1: Contemporary Ethnographies: Transformation, Change and Continuities Volume 1 aims to explore what constitutes ‘contemporary ethnography’. The core starting point is that it is better to think of ‘ethnographies’ rather than any single or simple approach or method. Volume 2: Current Ethnographic Practices: Working in the ‘Contemporary Field’ In Volume 2 the focus is on those works that emphasise, and critically examine, the ‘practice’ of ‘doing’ ethnography within the present-day context. Here, again, the selection of material is driven by a concern with continuities and discontinuities in contemporary approaches to ethnography. The focus is on the application, extension and revision of ‘classic’ approaches to the contemporary world: on how ethnographies have become attuned to the dynamics of the everyday as that has come to be. Volume 3: Digital Ethnography: Researching Online Worlds Volume 3, focusing on the ascendancy of digital and virtual ethnography in recent years, serves as an exemplar of a primary concern of this collection: that of exploring developments in the approach, institutional/disciplinary developments, and more general social changes. Volume 4: Contemporary Ethnographic Analysis: Interpretation, Meaning and Representation Analysis, interpretation, representation and ‘making meaning’ of and from ethnographic data are the central concerns of Volume 4. The volume contains an array of papers that reflect how substantive and practical concerns shape processes of analysing ethnographic data and, as with the earlier volumes, includes papers from a variety of epistemological starting points.

As the image of anthropologists exploring exotic locales and filling in blanks on the map has faded, the idea that cultural anthropology has much to say about the contemporary world has likewise diminished. In an increasingly smaller world, how can anthropology help us to tackle the concerns of a global society? David A. Westbrook argues that the traditional tool of the cultural anthropologist—ethnography—can still function as an intellectually exciting way to understand our interconnected, yet mysterious worlds. Navigators of the Contemporary describes the changing nature of ethnography as anthropologists use it to analyze places closer to home. Westbrook maintains that a conversational style of ethnography can help us look beyond our assumptions and gain new insight into arenas of contemporary life such as corporations, financial institutions, science, the military, and religion. Westbrook’s witty, absorbing book is a friendly challenge to anthropologists to shed light on the present and join broader streams of intellectual life. And for those outside the discipline, his inspiring vision of ethnography opens up the prospect of understanding our own world in much greater depth.

Energy related infrastructures are crucial to political organization. They shape the contours of states and international bodies, as well as corporations and communities, framing their material existence and their fears and idealisations of the future. Ethnographies of Power brings together ethnographic studies of contemporary entanglements of energy and political power. Revisiting classic anthropological notions of power, it asks how changing energy related infrastructures are implicated in the consolidation, extension or subversion of contemporary political regimes and discovers what they tell us about politics today.

Between Art and Anthropology provides new and challenging arguments for considering contemporary art and anthropology in terms of fieldwork practice. Artists and anthropologists share a set of common practices that raise similar ethical issues, which the authors explore in depth for the first time. The book presents a strong argument for encouraging artists and anthropologists to learn directly from each other's practices 'in the field'. It goes beyond the so-called 'ethnographic turn' of much contemporary art and the 'crisis of representation' in anthropology, in productively exploring the implications of the new anthropology of the senses, and ethical issues, for future art-anthropology collaborations. The contributors to this exciting volume consider the work of artists such as Joseph Beuys, Suzanne Lacy, Marcus Coates, Cameron Jamie, and Mohini Chandra. With cutting-edge essays from a range of key thinkers such as acclaimed art critic Lucy R. Lippard, and distinguished anthropologists George E. Marcus and Steve Feld, Between Art and Anthropology will be essential reading for students, artists and scholars across a number of fields.

Presenting cutting-edge ethnographic research on contemporary worlds of work and the experiences of workers from a range of contexts, this volume offers fine-grained, exploratory ethnographic data to provide insights unmatched by other research methods.