ideas introduced through ethnography
We’ve had some nice discussions of high quality ethnography. Here’s my question: which ethnographies have been responsible for introducing a new theoretical ideas into sociology? For example, I do know that early in his career Bourdieu did ethnography and his early theory was inspired by his field work. What other ideas have been brought into sociology this way? I want to distinguish between ethnography as thick/insightful description (e.g., more details on urban poverty) and ethnography as an argument for a new concept.
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Interesting question I am interested in as well. Tamar Zilber does some conceptual ethnography on TecEntrepreneurs in Israel.
Tim Lehmann (@DocLehmann)
February 10, 2012 at 8:09 am
Not 100% clear on the distinction between your categories, but I believe Hochschild’s “emotion work” qualifies.
KMD
February 10, 2012 at 2:19 pm
I think perhaps there is a third category for ethnography as theory testing. In other words, perhaps the ethnography did not introduce the concept, but it provide a masterful test of how that concept works that goes beyond just a thick description of a particular context. What comes to mind immediately are Lareau’s Unequal Childhoods and Wacquant’s Body and Soul.
Mikaila
February 10, 2012 at 3:13 pm
let me ask the question the other way round: Which ideas do not have the ground in ethnography (and where does it start then, when you take first order knowledge [Schutz]).
Andreas
February 10, 2012 at 3:40 pm
I’m not sure whether this fits your definition of ethnography, but my understanding is that Herbert A. Simon’s observations of meetings of schools and the playgrounds division, both of which were responsible for Milwaukee playgrounds, led to the development of his concept of bounded rationality. In other words, Simon studied how organizations actually worked, as opposed to how they were supposed to work.
KatherineKChen
February 10, 2012 at 3:59 pm
The frame analytic perspective in social movements was forged in Burke Rochford’s ethnography of ISKON, which was masterfully presented in his Hare Krishna in America. For Orgheads, you should read closely his fusion of Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s notions of value (in) determinism and Bennett Berger’s conceptions of ideological work to help understand the negotiation of commitment between movements and members.
sherkat
February 10, 2012 at 4:22 pm
Diane Vaughan – The Challenger Launch Decision – normalization of deviance
orgtheory reader
February 10, 2012 at 6:56 pm
Geertz obviously (e.g., the notion of a bazaar economy), but his notion of thick description–that being able to understand a culture well enough that you could actually function in it is equivalent to theorizing that culture–would likely challenge the distinction between providing more details and generating new concepts.
Then there’s Goffman…
sallaz
February 10, 2012 at 6:59 pm
Oscar Lewis and the culture of poverty.
Aaron
February 10, 2012 at 7:42 pm
I agree that Geertz is a key reference. Some of Polanyi’s work (especially Trade and Commerce in the Early Empires) is also quite relevant.
cemferreira
February 10, 2012 at 7:53 pm
Everything Goffman? [i.e. the mortified self in Asylums - maybe the concept was around before though...]
Dani F
February 10, 2012 at 9:05 pm
Dani F:
http://umh.academia.edu/PhilippeVienne/Papers/493612/The_enigma_of_the_total_institution._Rethinking_the_Hughes-Goffman_intellectual_relationship
peelpelhog
February 10, 2012 at 11:32 pm
One could turn it around and refer to March, who rumours claim to have (indirectly) said: “I have never seen a paper with a theoretical contribution that involved a regression analysis.”
Anonymous
February 12, 2012 at 5:36 pm