Ethnography Quotes

• Ethnography literally means 'a portrait of a people.' An ethnography is a written description of a particular culture - the customs, beliefs, and behavior - based on information collected through fieldwork.

  Marvin Harris

  Mean, People, Portraits

  58 Copy quote

• If we put together all that we have learned from anthropology and ethnography about primitive men and primitive society, we perceive that the first task of life is to live. Men begin with acts, not with thoughts.

  William Graham Sumner

  Life, Learning, Science

  Folkways ch. 1 (1906)

  58 Copy quote

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• Most anthropologists are doing straightforward ethnography, and should

  Clifford Geertz

  Should, Straightforward, Anthropologists

  33 Copy quote

• Social media is less about technology and more about anthropology, sociology, and ethnography.

  Brian Solis

  Technology, Media, Sociology

  Brian Solis (2011). “Engage!, Revised and Updated: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web”, p.3, John Wiley & Sons

  23 Copy quote

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• The anxiety around such work [vulnerably written ethnographies] is that it will prove to be beyond criticism, that it will be undiscussable.

  Ruth Behar

  Anxiety, Criticism, Prove

  11 Copy quote

• Packed with interwoven personal narratives which the author ties together to show the fragility and molding of Buryat memory and Buryat shamanism's purpose during the transition from state socialism to neoliberal capitalism in Mongolia. . . . Buyandelger has created an emotive, accessible, and well-researched ethnography sure to arouse sympathy and interest in readers.

  Michael Warren

  Memories, Ties, Together

  10 Copy quote

• Michael Jackson is an extremely productive ethnographer, a serious reader of phenomenological and existential philosophy, and a remarkable writer at a level that one rarely sees in anthropology. Lifeworlds, unsurprisingly, is no exception. The several essays included here fit into an impressive whole that set out a compelling case for a type of ethnography of which Jackson is one of the masters. The writing is strong and the critical reflections impressive. This book defines an approach to anthropology that is resonant enough to challenge the leading models of our time.

  Arthur Kleinman

  Strong, Philosophy, Book

  11 Copy quote

• I do feel a kinship with anthropology or ethnography, although when you hear those terms you think of something exotic. Generally, photographic anthropology has that taste of the faraway or undiscovered place. But my anthropology has more to do with what's in my reach.

  Ari Marcopoulos

  Thinking, Exotic, Taste

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  8 Copy quote

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• Finding Mecca in America weaves social theory and concrete ethnography into a significant contribution on Muslims in the United States, illuminating broader questions about the integration of minority and immigrant groups along the way. This is an important work and a joy to read.

  Eboo Patel

  America, Joy, Important

  11 Copy quote

• Written with grace and thoroughly researched, One People, One Blood is an ethnography with a lot of heart that also sheds new light on a fascinating and fraught chapter in recent Jewish history.

  Ruth Behar

  Heart, Light, Blood

  6 Copy quote