Ethnographic Methods (Modules 20, 24, 28)

Monday, June 22; Tuesday, June 23; Wednesday, June 24

Eggers Hall, Room 018

Kanisha D. Bond (SUNY Binghamton), Sarah E. Parkinson (Johns Hopkins University)

How can ethnographic methodologies and methods inform the study of politics? The immersive, meaning-centric, everyday-life focus that ethnographic methodologies offer affords social scientists insight into processes, practices, and understandings of political worlds that might otherwise remain hidden or obscure. Sometimes portrayed as “a craft” rather than “a method” or caricatured as “just hanging out,” the research approaches we explore in the Ethnographic Methods sequence explore ethnography’s immense potential in the study of power and politics. It addresses questions such as: What commitments does an ethnographic researcher make to herself, her interlocutors, the communities she studies, and to the discipline? What are the various ways in which a researcher can situate herself in a research practice where she is fundamentally the instrument? How does a researcher develop a robust ethnographic approach to a project, whether as a guiding methodology for an entire book or as part of a multi-method endeavor? What types of data or evidence do those leveraging ethnographic methods generate, through which methods, and how do they analyse them? How have ethnographers challenged, expanded, and innovated upon the presumed fundamentals of ethnography?

Participants may enter the module sequence after it has begun.

Preparation (required)

Before coming to IQMR, spend at least four hours intentionally observing and/or participating in, and then reflecting on a community, group, space, place, behavior, or cultural practice. Take detailed notes on what you observe and what you experience. Feel free to explore any overarching patterns, themes, hypotheses, or understandings that emerge over the course of your notes.

• There must be no reasonable expectation of privacy at your site, or among the individuals who you may observe. One way to ensure this is to choose to conduct your observations in a public space, meaning that there are no formal, institutional, or legal barriers to access (e.g., no permission, application, ID required, or sign-up/sign-in required).

• The site that you choose to observe must be low-risk for you and for participants. Remember, ethnography embraces the presence of politics in the everyday and the banal.

• You must engage only in observation or public participation. This exercise asks you to practice observation. Your goal is to work on noticing aspects of the everyday through the eyes of a social scientist. Absolutely no interviews or focus groups may be conducted for this exercise.

• Before beginning observation, please write the following document and send it to the instructors for sign off (sparkinson@jhu.edu and kbond@binghamton.edu). You should not begin the observation portion of the exercise without sign off. Please then bring this document and your notes with you to the module meetings:

  • An approximately half-page document detailing the logic of your siting, the behaviors/processes you intend to observe, and the populations you expect to be present, and any advance expectations or assumptions you have regarding what you will observe.

  • An approximately half-page document detailing your understanding of the risks, costs, and potential safety and security complications associated with your choice of a site and topical focus.

• Previous, group versions of this exercise have resulted in students being approached, detained, or otherwise surveilled by public law enforcement or private security agents for the appearance of note taking or otherwise “suspicious-looking” behaviors. These incidents occurred at shopping malls. However, they could take place in any number of locations and could involve actors other than law enforcement. This is one reality of observational/immersive research that we will discuss further in class. Keep this reality in mind as you plan your work.

• Understand that any notes you take do not qualify as human subjects research, do not have IRB approval, are not legally protected from subpoena, and could be used as evidence against you or those you observe by authorities. Please use this knowledge to inform your choice of observation site.

Ethnographic Methods I: The “Political” in Political Ethnography (M20, June 22)

8:45am - 10:15am – Introduction to Ethnography and Ethnographic Methods

This session covers the essential ontological, epistemological, and methodological basics of ethnography in political science research. We will answer questions such as: What is the difference between ethnography and ethnographic methods? What are the core elements and assumptions of ethnography and ethnographic research? What sorts of research questions and goals might ethnographic research be useful for answering/exploring?

Required readings:

• Schatz, Edward. Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power. 1st ed. University of Chicago Press, 2009. Introduction (1–22)

• Wedeen, Lisa. “Reflections on Ethnographic Work in Political Science.” Annual Review of Political Science 13, no. 1 (May 2010): 255–72. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.11.052706.123951

Recommended readings:

• Schatz, Edward. Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power. 1st ed. University of Chicago Press, 2009.

• Fujii, Lee Ann. “Research Ethics 101: Dilemmas and Responsibilities.” PS: Political Science & Politics 45, no. 04 (October 2012): 717–23. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096512000819.

• Shah, Alpa. “Ethnography? Participant Observation, a Potentially Revolutionary Praxis.” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 7, no. 1 (June 11, 2017): 45–59. https://doi.org/10.14318/hau7.1.008.

• Schwedler, Jillian M., Erica Simmons, and Nicholas Smith. “Summary: Ethnography and Participant Observation.” SSRN Scholarly Paper. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network, February 12, 2019. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3333471.

1:30pm - 3:00pm – The Researcher as the Instrument: Positionality, Reflexivity, and Ethics

This session focuses on what it means to develop an “ethnographic sensibility,” and on the centrality of recognizing, reflecting, understanding, and effectively communicating about one’s own social locations as an ongoing ethnographic practice.

Required readings:

• Pader, Ellen. “Seeing with an Ethnographic Sensibility: Explorations Beneath the Surface of Public Policies.” In Interpretation and Method: Empirical Research Methods and the Interpretive Turn, by Dvora Yanow and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea. M.E. Sharpe, 2006.

• Burawoy, Michael. “Revisits: An Outline of a Theory of Reflexive Ethnography.” American Sociological Review 68, no. 5 (October 1, 2003): 645–79. https://doi.org/10.2307/1519757.

• Thomas, Lahoma. “The Researcher’s Gaze: Positionality and Reflexivity.” In Doing Good Qualitative Research, edited by Jennifer Cyr and Sara Wallace Goodman. Oxford University Press, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197633137.003.0003.

Recommended readings:

• Jordan-Zachery, Julia. “Am I a Black Woman or a Woman Who Is Black? A Few Thoughts on the Meaning of Intersectionality.” Politics and Gender 3(2): 254–263.

• Hoang, Kimberly Kay. Dealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2015.

3:30pm - 5:00pm – What Makes (an) Ethnography Political?

This session will focus on the anthropological roots of ethnography and ethnographic methods, and on some of the opportunities and challenges that accompany translating ethnography into the norms and expectations of political science. We will also consider the fundamental power dynamics inherent in ethnographic research itself, including researcher/participant relationships, the specific questions we ask, and the nuances of access.

Required readings:

• Schatz, Edward. “Disciplines That Forget: Political Science and Ethnography.” PS: Political Science & Politics 50, no. 1 (January 2017): 135–38. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096516002304.

• Abu-Lughod, Lila. “Fieldwork of a Dutiful Daughter.” In Arab Women in the Field: Studying Your Own Society, edited by Soraya Altorki and Camillia Fawzi El-Solh. New York: Syracuse University Press, 1988.

• Materials regarding Saiba Varma’s The Occupied Clinic:

  • Nairang, Arif Hayat. 2022. “Book review: Saiba Varma. 2020. The Occupied Clinic: Militarism and Care in Kashmir.” Contributions to Indian Sociology 56(1): 99–102. https://doi.org/10.1177/00699667211073490

  • The Wire Staff. 2021. “Does Nondisclosure of Familial Proximity to ‘Security State’ Compromise Research on Kashmir?” TheWire.com (October 3). https://thewire.in/books/debate-does-familial-proximity-to-the-security-state-compromise-academic-research-on-kashmir

  • Research Ethics in Kashmir. “Statement on Anthropologist Saiba Varma.” Medium (blog), September 20, 2021. https://medium.com/@ResearchethicsinKashmir/statement-on-anthropologist-saiba-varma-f1bd0474d470.

Recommended readings:

• Bajoghli, Narges. Iran Reframed: Anxieties of Power in the Islamic Republic. 1st edition. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2019.

• Barnett, Michael N. “The UN Security Council, Indifference, and Genocide in Rwanda.” Cultural Anthropology 12, no. 4 (November 1, 1997): 551–78. https://doi.org/10.1525/can.1997.12.4.551.

• Driscoll, Jesse, and Caroline Schuster. “Spies like Us.” Ethnography 19, no. 3 (2017): 411–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/1466138117711717.

• Geleta, Esayas B. 2013. “The politics of identity and methodology in African development ethnography.” Qualitative Research 14(1): 131–146. DOI: 10.1177/1468794112468469

Ethnographic Methods II: Design, Technique, and Practice (M24, June 23)

8:45am - 10:15am – Siting Ethnography and Ethnographic Work

This session explores the logics of ethnographic siting. In contrast to approaches to fieldwork that assume cases exist “out there,” the class will discuss strategies for seeing and observing politics in everyday life. A group exercise will ask students to creatively brainstorm physical or social sites for studies of various political dynamics and behaviors. Students will also begin to analyze their preparatory work, beginning with: Where did you go, and what did you intend to observe? How and why did you choose your site of immersion?

Required readings:

• Balkan, Osman. “Burial and Belonging.” Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 15, no. 1 (2015): 120–34. https://doi.org/10.1111/sena.12119.

• Walsh, Katherine Cramer. “Putting Inequality in Its Place: Rural Consciousness and the Power of Perspective.” American Political Science Review 106, no. 03 (2012): 517–32. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055412000305.

• Small, Mario Luis. “‘How Many Cases Do I Need?’: On Science and the Logic of Case Selection in Field-Based Research.” Ethnography 10, no. 1 (March 1, 2009): 5–38. https://doi.org/10.1177/1466138108099586.

• Soss, Joe. “On Casing a Study versus Studying a Case.” Qualitative and Multi-Method Research 16, no. 1 (March 31, 2018): 21–27. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2562167.

Recommended readings:

• Wedeen, Lisa. “The Politics of Deliberation: Qāt Chews as Public Spheres in Yemen.” Public Culture 19, no. 1 (January 1, 2007): 59–84. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-2006-025.

• Pachirat, Timothy. Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011.

• Lee, Ching Kwan, and Yonghong Zhang. “The Power of Instability: Unraveling the Microfoundations of Bargained Authoritarianism in China.” American Journal of Sociology, May 1, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1086/670802.

1:30pm - 3:00pm – On the Ground: (Participant) Observation in (Collective) Action

Drawing on ethnographic work on collective action and protest, the instructors will walk students through various approaches to on-the-ground (participant) observation. How have scholars approached (participant) observation in protests and regarding collective action? Students will be asked to continue analysis of their own preparatory work, considering questions such as: What is the relationship between space, place, and action in your research site? How would you describe your observation “style”? Did your presence influence what and how you observe, or in what and how you participated? Drawing from the readings, students will then engage in an exercise on ethnographic mapping.

Required readings:

• Lichterman, Paul. “What Do Movements Mean? The Value of Participant-Observation.” Qualitative Sociology 21: 401–418 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023380326563

• Schwedler, Jillian. Protesting Jordan: Geographies of Power and Dissent. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2022. Chapter 5.

• Wood, Elisabeth Jean. Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Chapter 3.

Recommended readings:

• Krause, Jana. “The Ethics of Ethnographic Methods in Conflict Zones.” Journal of Peace Research, February 22, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343320971021.

• Wood, Elisabeth Jean. “The Ethical Challenges of Field Research in Conflict Zones.” Qualitative Sociology 29 (June 20, 2006): 373–86. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-006-9027-8.

• Fu, Diana. “Disguised Collective Action in China.” Comparative Political Studies 50, no. 4 (March 1, 2017): 499–527. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414015626437.

• McCurdy, Patrick and Julie Uldam. 2013. “Connecting Participant Observation Positions: Toward a Reflexive Framework for Studying Social Movements.” Field Methods 26(1): 40–55. https://doi.org/10.1177/1525822X13500448

3:30pm - 5:00pm – What Does It All Mean? Forms of Ethnographic Data/Evidence

This session will survey the various forms of ethnographic evidence/data, and provide an introduction to the basics of writing about ethnographic research. Students will consider the imperatives of observation, collection of human artifacts, and interpretation, as well as key differences between descriptive, reflective, and inferential writing as part of ethnography.

Required readings:

• Soss, Joe. “Talking Our Way to Meaningful Explanations: A Practice-Centered View of Interviewing for Interpretive Research.” In Interpretation and Method, by Dvora Yanow and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea, 2nd edition. Armonk, N.Y: Routledge, 2013.

• Fujii, Lee Ann. “Shades of Truth and Lies: Interpreting Testimonies of War and Violence.” Journal of Peace Research 47, no. 2 (March 1, 2010): 231–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343309353097.

• Parkinson, Sarah E. “Money Talks: Discourse, Networks, and Structure in Militant Organizations.” Perspectives on Politics 14, no. 4 (December 2016): 976–94. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592716002875.

Recommended readings:

• Cramer, Katherine J. The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker. Chicago Studies in American Politics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2016.

• Cronin-Furman, Kate, and Roxani Krystalli. “The Things They Carry: Victims’ Documentation of Forced Disappearance in Colombia and Sri Lanka.” European Journal of International Relations 27, no. 1 (March 1, 2021): 79–101. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066120946479.

• Gilboy, Janet A. “Deciding Who Gets In: Decisionmaking by Immigration Inspectors.” Law & Society Review 25, no. 3 (January 1, 1991): 571–99. https://doi.org/10.2307/3053727.

• Quatrini, Allison. “If My Participants Say ‘You’re Wrong’; Does It Mean I Really Am?” Qualitative & Multi-Method Research, August 21, 2020. https://www.academia.edu/74415474/If_My_Participants_say_Youre_Wrong_Does_it_Mean_I_really_Am.

• Smith, Nicholas. “Member Checking: Lessons from the Dead.” Qualitative & Multi-Method Research 17–18, no. 1 (August 21, 2020): 60–65. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3946827.

• Sreekanta, Vani, David Mwambari, Simi Mehta, and Madhurima Majumder. “The Unruly Arts of Ethnographic Refusal: Power, Politics, Performativity.” Fennia-International Journal of Geography 201, no. 2 (2023): 169–82.

Ethnographic Methods III: Innovations and Reclamations in Ethnographic Methods (M28, June 24)

8:45am - 10:15am – Placing Ethnography: Designing Multi-Method(ological) Projects

This session addresses the potential and potential pitfalls of leveraging ethnographic methods in multi-method research designs. How can scholars productively incorporate ethnographic methods into multi-method and even multi-epistemological research designs? Do ethnographic methods have particular synergies or irreconcilable differences with other data-generation and analytical approaches? When can scholars invoke and how should reviewers evaluate claims that research employs participant observation, ethnographic methods, or ethnography?

Required readings:

• Al-Faham, Hajer. “Researching American Muslims: A Case Study of Surveillance and Racialized State Control.” Perspectives on Politics, 2021, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720003655.

• Thachil, Tariq. “Do Rural Migrants Divide Ethnically in the City? Evidence from an Ethnographic Experiment in India.” American Journal of Political Science 61, no. 4 (2017): 908–26. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12315.

• Fu, Diana, Richard A. Nielsen, and Edward Schatz. Ethnography and Ethnographic Sensibility in Political Science. February 20, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-041224-084600.

Recommended readings:

• Soss, Joe. “Lessons of Welfare: Policy Design, Political Learning, and Political Action.” The American Political Science Review 93, no. 2 (June 1, 1999): 363–80. https://doi.org/10.2307/2585401.

• Small, Mario Luis. Unanticipated Gains: Origins of Network Inequality in Everyday Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

• Majic, Samantha. “Beyond ‘Victim-Criminals’: Sex Workers, Nonprofit Organizations, and Gender Ideologies.” Gender & Society 28, no. 3 (June 1, 2014): 463–85. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243214524623.

• Ahmed, Amel, and Rudra Sil. “When Multi-Method Research Subverts Methodological Pluralism—Or, Why We Still Need Single-Method Research.” Perspectives on Politics 10, no. 4 (2012): 935–53.

• Forberg, Peter, and Kristen Schilt. 2023. “What is ethnographic about digital ethnography? A sociological perspective.” Frontiers in Sociology 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2023.1156776

1:30pm - 3:00pm – The Two or Three Body Problem: Comparative and Multi-Sited Ethnography

Students will discuss approaches to, challenges involved with, and benefits of comparative ethnography and ethnographic work. Where do they see the most promise for comparative ethnography? Students will then workshop their siting exercise from the previous day to make one iteration of their siting comparative or to determine that it should not be.

Required readings:

• Simmons, Erica S., and Nicholas Rush Smith. “The Case for Comparative Ethnography.” Comparative Politics 51, no. 3 (2019): 341–59.

• Martínez, José Ciro, and Omar Sirri. “Of Bakeries and Checkpoints: Stately Affects in Amman and Baghdad.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 38, no. 5 (October 1, 2020): 849–66. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775820919773.

Recommended readings:

• Barnes, Nicholas. “The Logic of Criminal Territorial Control: Military Intervention in Rio de Janeiro.” Comparative Political Studies 55, no. 5 (April 1, 2022): 789–831. https://doi.org/10.1177/00104140211036035.

• de Koeijer, Valerie, Sarah E Parkinson, and Sofia J Smith. “‘It’s Just How Things Are Done’: Social Ecologies of Sexual Violence in Humanitarian Aid.” International Studies Quarterly 67, no. 3 (September 1, 2023): sqad065. https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqad065.

• Simmons, Erica S. “Targets, Grievances, and Social Movement Trajectories.” Comparative Political Studies 54, no. 10 (September 1, 2021): 1818–48. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414018806532.

• Thaler, Gregory M. “Equifinality in the Smallholder Slot: Cash Crop Development in the Brazilian Amazon and Indonesian Borneo.” Comparative Politics 53, no. 4 (July 1, 2021): 687–722. https://doi.org/10.5129/001041521X16050183696029.

3:30pm - 5:00pm – Modes of Immersion: Varieties of Ethnography

In this session, we will consider a range of techniques, strategies, and justifications for challenging how we think about immersion: across space, among individuals, and over time.

Required readings:

• Majic, Samantha. “Participant-Driven Action Research (PDAR) with Sex Workers in Vancouver.” In Negotiating Sex Work: Unintended Consequences of Policy and Activism, edited by Raven Bowen and Tamara O’Doherty, 53–74. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2014.

• Günel, Gökçe, and Chika Watanabe. “Patchwork Ethnography.” American Ethnologist 51, no. 1 (2024): 131–39. https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.13243.

• de Seta, Gabriele. “Three Lies of Digital Ethnography.” Journal of Digital Social Research 2, no. 1 (2020): 77–97. https://doi.org/10.33621/jdsr.v2i1.24.

Recommended readings:

• Elnakib, Mohamed M., and Monique Turner. “The Power of Activism as Self-Care: An Autoethnography of the Arrest of Activists in the Wake of the George Floyd Protests.” Women & Therapy 46, no. 4 (October 2, 2023): 391–406. https://doi.org/10.1080/02703149.2023.2286056.

• Kavanaugh, Philip R. and R. J. Maratea. “Digital Ethnography in an Age of Information Warfare: Notes from the Field.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 49, no. 1 (February 1, 2020): 3–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891241619854123.

• Fuhrmann, Larissa-Diana, and Simone Pfeifer. “Challenges in Digital Ethnography,” April 30, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1163/22117954-BJA10002.

• Jordan-Zachery, Julia. 2013. “Now you see me, now you don’t: my political fight against the invisibility/erasure of Black women in intersectionality research.” Politics, Groups, and Identities 1(1): 101–109. https://doi.org/10.1080/21565503.2012.760314