Course Crafting Ethnography

Course description

This course approaches ethnographic analysis, argument and writing as a craft to be learned. Good ethnographic craftsmanship entails giving primacy to empirical material and bringing it into dialogue with theoretical positions to nuance, refine and contradict these positions. Ethnographic knowledge production is irreducibly bound up with personal experience in particular times and places. Working with ethnographic material thus entails a particular kind of composition, the concrete arrangement and juxtaposition of ethnographic fragments and analytical reflections (Nielsen & Rapport 2018). Moving from experience to different kinds of texts (field notes, ethnographic accounts, thesis chapters) is thus a creative and transformative process of 'enscription.' As a writing matter, it is never simply a question "of how to bring certain scenes to life but how to bring life to ideas" (Strathern, cited in Narayan 2012:15) and how to "produce knowledge that confronts social and political complexity with a clarity and verve that promotes the common good" (Stoller, 2016).

Drawing on an emerging body of literature on ethnographic writing and analysis, the course will explore analytical potential of ethnography as a craft, i.e.. a particular way of composing an argument, writing forth new knowledge of the world and bringing new ideas to life.

The course combines lectures and discussions of student drafts (7-10 pages) with hands-on writing and other exercises to facilitate students in opening their material and exploring the crafting of texts, analyses and arguments based on ethnographic material.

Aim

The course aims to facilitate awareness and develop skills in crafting ethnographic analyses and argument through creative processes of writing. Students will:

1. Engage critically with and develop their own material and writing 
2. Learn to use prompted writing exercises as tools for crafting parts of their thesis they find difficult or troublesome.

Target group/Participants

The candidate must have finished ethnographic fieldwork and be in the analytical/writing phase of the thesis.

Form

A two-day workshop focusing on

1. Lectures drawing on the reading
2. Close reading and discussion of the candidates' work
3. Writing exercises as creative analytical tools
4. Social dramatization of relevant concepts
5. Presentation of ethnographies.

The workshop will be followed by a full-day open seminar on ethnographic writing, involving AU colleagues and invited international guest speakers.

Preparation

To be prepared for the course

• PhD Students are expected to read the required literature
• Produce a 7-10 page draft.

During the course, students will reflect on the literature, read and peer review each others' work and produce and review writing based on a series of small writing exercises.

Lecturers

• E. Summerson Carr
• Cathrine Hasse
• Maja Hojer Bruun

Venue

• 30 June 2025: William Scharff Auditorium, building 1253, room 317, Aarhus University.Bartholins Allé 3, 8000 Aarhus C
• 1 July 2025: William Scharff Auditorium, building 1253, room 317, Aarhus University.Bartholins Allé 3, 8000 Aarhus C
• 2 July 2025: William Scharff Auditorium, building 1253, room 317, Aarhus University.Bartholins Allé 3, 8000 Aarhus C
  

Course dates:

• 30 June 2025 08:30 - 17:00
• 01 July 2025 08:30 - 16:30
• 02 July 2025 10:00 - 16:00