Bad Ethnography

literary-ethnography:

Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography by John Van Maanen

This book originally came out in 1988 to discuss the various new forms of ethnography available to anthropologists in the wake of critiques laid out in Writing Culture.  The book has been issued as a second edition in 2011 with a brief new prologue and a substantive new epilogue written in 2010.  The first two chapters give a great overview of the history of the ethnographic method and the general differences between anthropological and sociological uses of ethnography.  Van Maanen then turns to a detailed discussion of three genres of ethnographic “tales”: realist tales, confessional tales, and impressionistic tales. 

This is a good text for anyone thinking about writing an ethnographic dissertation or book.  It is short and sweet and very accessible.