Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Rose makes a passionate plea to break down the corporate mould of ethnography and reshape it as a democratic form of thinking and being. He links the origins of ethnography with the travel journals left by colonizing European traders, merchants and soldiers, then shows to what extent modern ethnography, centred on corporate organized universities, has adopted this imperial philosophy and structure. By breaking away from this model he offers an alternative which is concerned with its subject and which links the life of the ethnographer to the ethnography. Through the use of poem, story and epigraph as well as scholarly analysis, Rose opens up the window on the possibility of ethnography as a way of life.
Synopsis
Should we draw the line between going native and rethinking our ethnographic status? Rose goes beyond merely questioning the ethnographic process. Rather, he explores its origins, its current state of affairs, and proposes how ethnography can be a potent "(sub)culture" for conditioning inquiry into culture. He contends that the corporate structure limits the effectiveness of our current research and subsequent insights into the people whom we study. With a radical democratization of knowledge, decolonization of academic thought, and a move beyond abstract relations, Rose urges ethnographers to reevaluate their pursuit of ethnographic knowledge. Replete with examples from his extensive research and personal experience, Living the Ethnographic Life provides a refreshing outlook and insight into ethnographic study--a valuable resource for anyone with interests in anthropology, sociology, critical and postmodernist theory, and, of course, ethnography.