The Ethnographic Imagination: Textual Constructions of Reality

I had read book after book on ethnographic method and practice while a Ph.D. student. Even several graduate courses did not make matters any better. It seemed that the space between studying the "method" of ethnography and actually writing one was vast and unknowable--until Paul Atkinson's book. I smiled the whole time while reading this text. I had found the key! By taking a textual analysis approach, Dr. Atkinson takes the reader on a journey through the textual construction of ethnographic texts. Examining some of the most important ethnographic texts in the social sciences, Dr. Atkinson explores the literary elements that go into the actual writing of ethnography. I don't know if he intended to write a methods book on "how to" write an ethnography, but, personally, it became my night time bible while conducting my Ph.D. ethnography (now released as a book: Native Americans in the Carolina Borderlands: A Critical Ethnography, Carolinas Press, 2000) By learning how ethnographies discursivly construct "reality effects" via literary deployments, one gains insight into how to write an interesting, evocative, ironic tale. We have Dr. Atkinson to thank for bringing to light how writing itself is methodology. If you are contemplating doing ethnographic research, you can't go wrong reading this text. I know that you will produce a better ethnography!