Interpreting the Field: Accounts of Ethnography - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0198258410 ISBN 13: 9780198258414

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1994

Synopsis

This book has two central purposes: to demonstrate the importance of qualitative research through an examination of the type of data that it is capable of producing, and, to do so using first-hand research accounts of ethnographic work. In reflecting upon personal experiences of field-work, together with the research strategies employed, the authors illustrate their arguments in a detailed and accessible manner. The themes they discuss include the ethics and politics of field-work, reflexivity and data production, feminist field-work, the publication and production of studies, and an examination of the contrasting cultures of academia and what is normally termed the 'field', where knowledges are authenticated according to different rules and power relations.

About this title

About the Author

Dick Hobbs is a well known sociologist and author of Doing the Business (Clarendon Paperbacks, March 1993), which won the Philip Abrams Memorial Prize for the vest first sociology book by a new author when it was first published in 1988.

Tim May previously taught at the University of Durham and has been a researcher at Plymouth Polytechnic and the Centre for Criminological Research, Oxford.

Review

`This is a very important and novel book. It allows the student to engage in what is otherwise a very dry debate. It is accessible and well-written and very readable.'
David Wall, University of Leeds

`This is a very important and novel book. It allows the student to engage in what is otherwise a very dry debate. It is accessible and well written and VERY readable.'
David Wall, University of Leeds

`Each essay has a deal to say on the business of doing fieldwork. No doubt the book will become a standard in teaching Research Methods.'
Man

`valuable and timely contribution to the growing array of British texts in the area of qualitative research'
European Sociological Review

`Excellent all round.'
Julia Davidson University of Westminister

`Each essay has a deal to say on the business of doing fieldwork. No doubt the book will become a standard in teaching Research Methods.'
MAN

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0198258410
• ISBN 13: 9780198258414
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 268
• Editor: Hobbs Dick, May Tim