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Composing Ethnography

Alternative Forms of Qualitative Writing

Edited by Carolyn Ellis and Arthur P. Bochner

What is it like to have lived with bulimia for most of your life? To have a mother who is retarded? To fight a health insurance company in order to survive breast cancer? Carolyn Ellis and Arthur P. Bochner have assembled innovative pieces which tackle these and other difficult questions, enlarging the space to practice ethnographic writing as the stories are told through memoirs, poetry, photography, and other creative forms usually associated with the arts. The authors demonstrate how ethnographic data can be converted into memorable experiences that readers can use in the classroom and everyday life.
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AltaMira Press
Pages: 400 • Trim: 6 x 9
978-0-7619-9164-9 • Paperback • August 1996 • $63.00 • (£48.00)
Series: Ethnographic Alternatives
Subjects: Social Science / Anthropology / General
Carolyn Ellis: University of South Florida
Arthur P. Bochner: University of South Florida
chapter 1 About the Authors
chapter 2 Preface and Acknowledgments
chapter 3 Arthur P. Bochner and Carolyn Ellis, Introduction: Talking Over Ethnography
chapter 4 Part 1: Autoethnography
chapter 5 1. David Payne, Autobiology
chapter 6 2. Lisa Tillmann-Healy, A Secret Life in a Culture of Thinness: Reflections on Body, Food and Bulimia
chapter 7 3. Carol Rambo Ronai, My Mother is Mentally Retarded
chapter 8 4. Aliza Kolker, Thrown Overboard: The Human Costs of Health Care Rationing
chapter 9 (R. Ruth Linden, The Life Boat is Fraught: Reflection on Thrown Overboard)
chapter 10 5. Mark Neumann, Collecting Ourselves at the End of the Century
chapter 11 Part 2: Sociopoetics
chapter 12 6. Judith Hamera, Reconstructing Apsaras from Memory: Six Thoughts
chapter 13 7. Deborah Austin, Kaleidoscope: The Same and Different
chapter 14 8. Laurel Richardson, Speech Lessons
chapter 15 9. Carolyn Ellis, Maternal Connections
chapter 16 10. Jim Mienczakowski, An Ethnographics Act: The Construction of Consensual Theatre
chapter 17 Part 3: Reflexive Ethnography
chapter 18 11. Marc Edelman, Devil, Not-Quite-White, Rootless Cosmopolitan: Tsuris in Latin America, the Bronx, and the USSR
chapter 19 12. Tanice G. Foltz and Wendy Griffin, She Changes Everything She Touches: Ethnographic Journeys of Self-Discovery
chapter 20 13. Karen Fox, Silent Voices: A Subversive Reading of Child Sexual Abuse
chapter 21 14. Richard Quinney, Once My Father Traveled West to California
chapter 22 Open-Ending, Readers Talk Back
chapter 23 Name Index
chapter 24 Subject Index
Ellis and Bochner establish the need, importance and centrality of new forms of qualitative writing for interpretive ethnography . . . [establishing] autoethnographies, sociopoetics, and reflexive texts as central points of reference for innovative ethnographic practice in the next century. There is much to be learned from these important exemplars.
— Norman K. Denzin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign


I highly recommend this book....Each of their authors provides a well-crafted example of social science writing that is evocative, embodied, artistic, and often deeply emotional.
— Barbara Tedlock, (SUNY Buffalo), SUNY Buffalo


The articles... illustrate the kinds of writing that many of us in more traditional disciplines would like to see more widely used.... Most importantly... these authors acknowledge the development of a new form of consciousness that was spiritual and political.
— Alfredo Gaitan; Forum: Qualitative Social Research


Each [article] is meant to engage readers personally, allowing them to gain critical insight into their own lives through understanding of the writer's lives. The editors recognize that works like these are at the fringes of academic norms. By presenting them as innovative alternatives they push readers to examine their own beliefs about what research, ethnography, and academic writing should be.
— Quarterly Journal Of Speech


Composing Ethnography

Alternative Forms of Qualitative Writing

Cover Image
Paperback
Summary
Summary
  • What is it like to have lived with bulimia for most of your life? To have a mother who is retarded? To fight a health insurance company in order to survive breast cancer? Carolyn Ellis and Arthur P. Bochner have assembled innovative pieces which tackle these and other difficult questions, enlarging the space to practice ethnographic writing as the stories are told through memoirs, poetry, photography, and other creative forms usually associated with the arts. The authors demonstrate how ethnographic data can be converted into memorable experiences that readers can use in the classroom and everyday life.
Details
Details
  • AltaMira Press
    Pages: 400 • Trim: 6 x 9
    978-0-7619-9164-9 • Paperback • August 1996 • $63.00 • (£48.00)
    Series: Ethnographic Alternatives
    Subjects: Social Science / Anthropology / General
Author
Author
  • Carolyn Ellis: University of South Florida
    Arthur P. Bochner: University of South Florida
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
  • chapter 1 About the Authors
    chapter 2 Preface and Acknowledgments
    chapter 3 Arthur P. Bochner and Carolyn Ellis, Introduction: Talking Over Ethnography
    chapter 4 Part 1: Autoethnography
    chapter 5 1. David Payne, Autobiology
    chapter 6 2. Lisa Tillmann-Healy, A Secret Life in a Culture of Thinness: Reflections on Body, Food and Bulimia
    chapter 7 3. Carol Rambo Ronai, My Mother is Mentally Retarded
    chapter 8 4. Aliza Kolker, Thrown Overboard: The Human Costs of Health Care Rationing
    chapter 9 (R. Ruth Linden, The Life Boat is Fraught: Reflection on Thrown Overboard)
    chapter 10 5. Mark Neumann, Collecting Ourselves at the End of the Century
    chapter 11 Part 2: Sociopoetics
    chapter 12 6. Judith Hamera, Reconstructing Apsaras from Memory: Six Thoughts
    chapter 13 7. Deborah Austin, Kaleidoscope: The Same and Different
    chapter 14 8. Laurel Richardson, Speech Lessons
    chapter 15 9. Carolyn Ellis, Maternal Connections
    chapter 16 10. Jim Mienczakowski, An Ethnographics Act: The Construction of Consensual Theatre
    chapter 17 Part 3: Reflexive Ethnography
    chapter 18 11. Marc Edelman, Devil, Not-Quite-White, Rootless Cosmopolitan: Tsuris in Latin America, the Bronx, and the USSR
    chapter 19 12. Tanice G. Foltz and Wendy Griffin, She Changes Everything She Touches: Ethnographic Journeys of Self-Discovery
    chapter 20 13. Karen Fox, Silent Voices: A Subversive Reading of Child Sexual Abuse
    chapter 21 14. Richard Quinney, Once My Father Traveled West to California
    chapter 22 Open-Ending, Readers Talk Back
    chapter 23 Name Index
    chapter 24 Subject Index
Reviews
Reviews
  • Ellis and Bochner establish the need, importance and centrality of new forms of qualitative writing for interpretive ethnography . . . [establishing] autoethnographies, sociopoetics, and reflexive texts as central points of reference for innovative ethnographic practice in the next century. There is much to be learned from these important exemplars.
    — Norman K. Denzin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign


    I highly recommend this book....Each of their authors provides a well-crafted example of social science writing that is evocative, embodied, artistic, and often deeply emotional.
    — Barbara Tedlock, (SUNY Buffalo), SUNY Buffalo


    The articles... illustrate the kinds of writing that many of us in more traditional disciplines would like to see more widely used.... Most importantly... these authors acknowledge the development of a new form of consciousness that was spiritual and political.
    — Alfredo Gaitan; Forum: Qualitative Social Research


    Each [article] is meant to engage readers personally, allowing them to gain critical insight into their own lives through understanding of the writer's lives. The editors recognize that works like these are at the fringes of academic norms. By presenting them as innovative alternatives they push readers to examine their own beliefs about what research, ethnography, and academic writing should be.
    — Quarterly Journal Of Speech


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