Thinking Ethnographically Paul Atkinson

Introduction : granular ethnography: The logic of ideas ; Thinking ethnographically ; Rescuing qualitative research ; Granular ethnography ; Some key commitments --
Defining social reality: Social construction of reality ; Social worlds ; Defining the situation ; Documentary realities ; Boundaries --
Encounters: The interaction order ; Negotiations and accommodations ; Talk and conversation ; Awareness contexts and strategic interaction --
Language and performance: Performance ; Accounts ; Narratives ; Rhetoric ; Rumour, reputation and legend --
Identities: Identities ; Labelling ; Moral careers and trajectories ; Motives ; Communities and communities of practice --
Knowledge and reason: Local and situated knowledge ; Practical reasoning ; Rules in action ; Typifications ; Habitus and embodiment ; Senses, places and things --
The senses and multimodality: Aesthetics ; Artefacts ; Soundscapes ; Landscape and movement --
Time and memory: Collective memory ; Timescapes and rhythms ; Authenticity ; Age and generation --
Postscript.

Written by a leading authority, this book discusses a wide range of analytic ideas that can and should inform ethnographic analysis. In introducing the notion of 'granular ethnography' it argues for an approach to qualitative research that is sensitive to the complexities of everyday social life. A much-needed antidote to superficial research and analysis, the text deals not merely with the practical methods of fieldwork, but with the far more ambitious enterprise of turning ethnographic data into productive ideas and concepts. Paul Atkinson enables us not merely to do ethnography, but truly to think ethnographically. His book will prove invaluable to students and researchers across the social sciences.