1—Hidden Worlds
Finding the tools
From idea to finished product
The need for a cultural perspective
Analytical strategies
Structure of the book
2—The importance of small things
The first step: getting going
The second step: searching for literature
The third step: collecting material
The fourth step: the analysis
The fifth step: writing
3—Making the familiar strange
Making a first attempt
Looking for entrances
To avoid the predictable
Choosing methodological entrances
New questions and surprising answers
Return to the past
A life-history perspective
The strange home
The home as an art installation
The importance of details and activities
The advantages of limitation
4—Sharing a meal
Table manners
The hidden world of the dinner table
Forming a family meal
Power at the table
Class and family history
Doing mealtime ethnography
Meals as models
5—Do you remember Facebook?
Exploring media in everyday life
Beginning at the end
Analog and digital living
Media taking place
Virtual intimacy
Are you there?
Follow the Objects
6—Catching a mood
Locating the setting
Analytical approaches
Touring the senses
The station as a sensorium
Changing moods
Describing atmospheres
Intimate moods
Changing tracks
Sensing the World
7—Crafting wood and words
Ethnographic writing
Making things with words
Autoethnographic writing
Describing non-verbal experience
Do it by feel
Writing DIY: three versions
Manual
Story
Analysis
Working knowledge
The importance of failures
Working and Writing
8—Demystifying fieldwork
The classic style
Making changes to the classic mold
The jungle ideal
Where is the field now?
Organizing information
Past, present, future
9—Taking cultural analysis out into the world
The surprise effect
Open fieldwork
What’s this thing about culture?
A double cultural analysis
Learning to communicate
Time discipline and teamwork
Three ways of surprising a client
So what?
The critical edge
References
Billy Ehn is professor emeritus of ethnology at Umeå University in Sweden. He is co-author, with Orvar Löfgren, of The Secret World of Doing Nothing.Orvar Löfgren is professor emeritus of ethnology at Lund University in Sweden. His publications include On Holiday: A History of Vacationing. Richard Wilk is Provost’s Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University. His publications include Fast Food/Slow Food and Economies and Cultures (second edition, with Lisa Cliggett.) Richard Wilk and Orvar Löfgren, together with Jessica Chelakis, are co-editors of The Anthropology of Everyday Life, a Rowman & Littlefield series.
Books that teach the art of analyzing a culture and are easy to
read are rare. This book fills that gap by making it an everyday
experience. For example, in the third chapter, ‘Making the Familiar
Strange,’ the goal is to discover what is new and strange within
homes of differing cultures. These small details help ethnographers
understand what is going on in the lives of the people that they
are studying. In another chapter, ‘Sharing a Meal,’ the authors
point out how much can be learned by observing a mealtime with a
family. The simple act of eating a meal together varies given the
combination of cultural expectations and family histories; this is
a real learning experience when viewed from an ethnographic
perspective. The study of cultural ideals and mores is fraught with
difficulties; the authors have broken this into basics that make
ethnography doable and fun. Their examples help learners craft
their studies step-by-step, as well as give advice on analysis that
is both helpful and insightful. A well-researched and highly
readable book for both social science and anthropological
interests. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Most academic
levels/libraries.
*Choice Reviews*
This is a wonderful handbook: the chapters are content rich, with a
bevy of excellent examples. The authors offer concrete and specific
attention to proceeding with research on cultural meaning, cultural
objects, and cultural fields. It will be a valuable addition for
any number of classes at both the undergraduate and graduate
levels: qualitative methods, ethnography, a course on writing in
the social sciences, or ones focused on culture, micro-sociology,
and/or everyday life.
*Amy L. Best, George Mason University*
An easy-to-read and practical guide to understanding how
anthropologists study the everyday and to what ends they apply
their insights. It offers incredibly accessible writing, with short
and straightforward chapters and clear examples.
*Georgina Drew, University of Adelaide*
Exploring Everyday Life is a book to be used, not simply read. The
authors encourage us to be more conscious about the unconscious, to
see how the ordinary in life is as important as the extraordinary
in making us who we are. And they succeed in making ethnographic
methods a widely accessible tool of both social analysis and
quotidian engagement. Such considered and self-reflective
observations of the commonplace not only afford not only a better
understanding of the world but allow us to live better within
it.
*David W. Montgomery, University of Pittsburgh*
A rare and wonderfully elaborate hands-on approach to ethnography
and cultural analysis; this text is a source of inspiration on how
to convert unnoticed everyday phenomena into cultural analysis.
*Morten Kyed, Aalborg University*
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