This Lektüreseminar aims to introduce MA students with an interest in qualitative research methods to the ways in which ethnography is conducted by scholars who identify themselves as sociologists. As we will see, ethnography as a method involves particular udnerstandings of the social world (ontology) and how knowledges can be proiduced (epistemology). The course consists of an intensive literature review of classical ethnographies, a critical appraisal of three current perspectives of ethnography, and an introduction through practical exercises to three tools from the ethnographer’s tool box: the writing of fieldnotes, the conducting of semi-structured interviews and the coding of fieldnotes.
Literature: Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, Wacquant Body & Soul, Desmond Evicted, Duneier Sidewalk, Bourgois In Search of Respect
