Key Concepts in Ethnography

"An accessible and entertaining read, useful to anybody interested in the ethnographic method."
- Paul Miller, University of Cumbria

"A very good introduction to ethnographic research, particularly useful for first time researchers."
- Heather Macdonald, Chester University

"The perfect introductory guide for students embarking on qualitative research for the first time... This should be of aid to the ethnographic novice in their navigating what is a theoretically complex and changing methodological field."
- Patrick Turner, London Metropolitan University

An accessible, authoritative, non-nonsense guide to the key concepts in one of the most widely used methodologies in social science: Ethnography, this book:

• Explores and summarises the basic and related issues in ethnography that are covered nowhere else in a single text.
• Examines key topics like sampling, generalising, participant observation and rapport, as well as embracing new fields such as virtual, visual and multi-sighted ethnography and issues such as reflexivity, writing and ethics.
• Presents each concept comprehensively yet critically, alongside relevant examples.

This is not quite an encyclopaedia but far more than a dictionary. It is comprehensive yet brief. It is small and neat, easy to hold and flick through. It is what students and researchers have been waiting for.

“'This is a very attractive and welcoming text that is extremely lucid, engaging and often humorous. The author manages to pack the text with many, many relevant examples from key ethnographies, as well as drawing upon her own research experiences and writings. This book is very student friendly which is a major advantage and has found a niche in tone, approach and content; I will refer to it in my own work and teaching' - Paul Willis, Professor of Social/Cultural Ethnography, Keele University ' [This book] will provide some comfort for the perplexed and [it] should also perplex the comfortable. As [it] does so [it] should generate useful discussion and debate' - Qualitative Research”

This is a very attractive and welcoming text that is extremely lucid, engaging and often humorous. The author manages to pack the text with many, many relevant examples from key ethnographies, as well as drawing upon her own research experiences and writings. This book is very student friendly which is a major advantage and has found a niche in tone, approach and content; I will refer to it in my own work and teaching. -- Paul Willis

Karen O′Reilly is Professor of Sociology at Loughborough University. She has taught ethnographic and qualitative methods for many years around the world including the Essex Summer School in Social Science Data Collection and Analysis, and the Swiss Summer School in Lugano. She has spent 20 years on and off living among and learning from British people who move abroad in search of a better way of life. Sociologically, this has informed an interest in a broad range of themes, including ethnicity, identity and community; nations and nationalism; home and belonging; social exclusion; the informal economy; tourism-related migration; and friends and networks. Her interests have more recently turned to practice theories and their implications for ethnographic methodology. Karen is author of Ethnographic Methods (Routledge), Key Concepts in Ethnography (SAGE) and International Migration and Social Theory (Palgrave Macmillan), and co-editor of Lifestyle Migration: Expectations, Aspirations and Experiences (Ashgate). 

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