Ethnography Matters

While there are many outputs to ethnographic work from talks to user insights and papers, a very traditional output of ethnographic field work is the ethnographic monograph. Some ethnographers have gone to great lengths to bring their field site to life in this form.

We thought that compiling a list of ethnographic monographs would be of valuable to the community. We have created a public Mendeley Ethnographic Monograph group that we invite all readers to join. Anyone can add ethnographic monographs to the list as long as it’s in book format (see Jenna’s post for a definition if you’re unsure or Carole McGranahan from Savage Minds).

Another idea that we have for the Mendeley group is to turn it into small reading groups. These groups will read 1 monograph in 1 month and discuss questions together. The group’s answers will be shared as a blog post.

Several of the contributors will experiment this summer with a reading group model where we have 1 person lead a small reading group of 3 to 4 people. The organizer will help set the schedule for 1 book a month and pose several questions for the group to answer via email every week. Then the organizer will compile all the answers into a blog post to share with the community.  We will try this out during the summer and report back in the fall on how others can join also!

In the meantime, we would love to see you on our Mendeley group!

Also we are on our 9th edition of our monthly Ethnozine newsletter, here is the June issue. And as always, we welcome contributions and any other ideas you may have! Or just email us to say hi!

–The Ethnography Matters Team