Inside Ethnography

While some books present “ideal” ethnographic field methodsInside Ethnography shares the realities of fieldwork in action. With a focus on strategies employed with populations at society’s margins, twenty-one contemporary ethnographers examine their cutting-edge work with honesty and introspection, drawing readers into the field to reveal the challenges they have faced.
 
Representing disciplinary approaches from criminology, sociology, anthropology, public health, business, and social work, and designed explicitly for courses on ethnographic and qualitative methods, crime, deviance, drugs, and urban sociology, the authors portray an evolving methodology that adapts to the conditions of the field while tackling emerging controversies with perceptive sensitivity. Their judicious advice on how to avoid pitfalls and remedy missteps provides unusual insights for practitioners, academics, and undergraduate and graduate students.
 

While some books present “ideal” ethnographic field methodsInside Ethnography shares the realities of fieldwork in action. With a focus on strategies employed with populations at society’s margins, twenty-one contemporary ethnographers examine their cutting-edge work with honesty and introspection, drawing readers into the field to reveal the challenges they have faced.
 
Representing disciplinary approaches from criminology, sociology, anthropology, public health, business, and social work, and designed explicitly for courses on ethnographic and qualitative methods, crime, deviance, drugs, and urban sociology, the authors portray an evolving methodology that adapts to the conditions of the field while tackling emerging controversies with perceptive sensitivity. Their judicious advice on how to avoid pitfalls and remedy missteps provides unusual insights for practitioners, academics, and undergraduate and graduate students.
 

Acknowledgments
Preface

Introduction
Miriam Boeri and Rashi K. Shukla

PART ONE
BECOMING AN ETHNOGRAPHER
1 • Going Native with Evil
Marie Rosenkrantz Lindegaard
2 • Lost in the Park: Learning to Navigate the Unpredictability
of Fieldwork
Elizabeth Bonomo and Scott Jacques
3 • Unearthing Aggressive Advocacy: Challenges and Strategies
in Social Service Ethnography
Curtis Smith and Leon Anderson
4 • Going into the Gray: Conducting Fieldwork
on Corporate Misconduct
Eugene Soltes

PART TWO
TEAM ETHNOGRAPHY
5 • Hide-and-Seek: Challenges in the Ethnography of Street Drug Users
Merrill Singer and J. Bryan Page
6 • Into the Epistemic Void: Using Rapid Assessment to Investigate
the Opioid Crisis
Jason N. Fessel, Sarah G. Mars, Philippe Bourgois
and Daniel Ciccarone
7 • Conducting International Reflexive Ethnography: Theoretical
and Methodological Struggles
Avelardo Valdez, Alice Cepeda, and Charles Kaplan

PART THREE
NAVIGATING THE UNUSUAL
8 • Hidden: Accessing Narratives of Parental Drug
Dealing and Misuse
Ana Lilia Campos-Manzo
9 • Navigating Stigma: Researching Opioid and Injection
Drug Use among Young Immigrants from the Former
Soviet Union in New York City
Honoria Guarino and Anastasia Teper

PART FOUR
THE EMOTIONAL IMPACT OF DOING ETHNOGRAPHY
10 • Dangerous Liaisons: Reflections on a Serial Ethnography
Robert Gay
11 • The Emotional Labor of Fieldwork with People
Who Use Methamphetamine
Heith Copes
12 • Ethnography of Injustice: Death at a County Jail
Joshua Price

Conclusion: Looking Back, Moving Forward
Rashi K. Shukla and Miriam Boeri

List of Contributors
Index