“From Notes to Narrative: Writing Ethnographies that Everyone Can Read” – (my reading notes)

One of the things I realized as I was going through my Resources pages and more specifically, my Reading Notes of Books I have Read is that I have not tweeted nor blogged enough about methods. This makes me feel particularly bad because well, I am a methods guy. So I figured I’d write about a book that masterfully blends two of my major interests: writing AND ethnography.

As I said in my Twitter thread, “From Notes to Narrative: Writing Ethnographies that Everyone Can Read” by Dr. Kristen Ghodsee is an absolute masterpiece. I will be using this book to teach how to write ethnography. Of course, I would very strongly encourage you to read my editorial in the International Journal of Qualitative Methods too, if like me, you are interested in teaching writing in the social sciences, and/or ethnographic methods: Writing Field Notes and Using Them to Prompt Scholarly Writing”

My Twitter thread offers my reading notes of Ghodsee. First I offered some context on my background as an ethnographer.

Then I discussed why I love Ghodsee’s book.

Bottom line: when I teach Ethnographic Methods next I’ll be using Ghodsee as one of the key texts. I do very strongly recommend that you read it. And while I may put her on the spot, Dr. Robin Nagle wrote one of the most compelling ethnographies I have ever read in my life.

Then, I offered a couple of reflections on doing (and writing) ethnography of vulnerable communities, a topic Dr. Kate Parizeau and I have published about.

Hopefully my reading notes will be of use to those interested in improving their writing of fieldwork and ethnographic material.

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