The Creative Ethnographer's Notebook

The Creative Ethnographer's Notebook offers emerging and trained ethnographers exercises to spark creativity and increase the impact and beauty of ethnographic study.

With contributions by emerging scholars and leading creative ethnographers working in various social science fields (e.g., anthropologists, educators, ethnomusicologists, political scientists, geographers, and others), this volume offers readers a variety of creative prompts that ethnographers have used in their own work and university classrooms to deepen their ethnographic and artistic practice. The contributions foreground different approaches in creative practice, broadening the tools of multimodal ethnography as one designs a study, works with collaborators and landscapes, and renders ethnographic findings through a variety of media. Instructors will find dozens of creative prompts to use in a wide variety of classroom settings, including early beginners to experienced ethnographers and artists. In the eBook+ version of this book, there are numerous pop-up definitions to key ethnographic terms, links to creative ethnographic examples, possibilities for extending prompts for more advanced anthropologists, and helpful tips across all phases of inquiry projects.

This resource can be used by instructors of anthropology and other social sciences to teach students how to experiment with creative approaches, as well as how to do better public and engaged anthropology. Artists and arts faculty will also benefit from using this book to inspire culturally attuned art making that engages in research, as well as research-based art. Readers will learn how creative ethnography draws on aspects of the literary, visual, sonic, and/or performing arts. Information is provided about how scholars and artists, or scholartists, document culture in ways that serve more diverse public and academic audiences.

Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor, Meigs Professor of Language and Literacy Education at the University of Georgia, has authored six books, including a book of poems, Imperfect Tense. She became a Fulbright Ambassador (Mexico) in 2022.

Kristina Jacobsen, Associate Professor of Songwriting and Anthropology (Sociocultural & Linguistic) at the University of New Mexico, is a touring singer-songwriter and Fulbright Scholar (US–Italy, 2019–2020).