Innovations in Ethnographic Methods

Abstract

This article reviews innovations in ethnographic methods that have developed over the past 25 years, specifically the emergence of multisited and short-term fieldwork, digital ethnography, various kinds of participatory and collaborative ethnography, and the use of interviews. Ethnographic methods, once primarily employed by anthropologists, have now been embraced by many other social science practitioners. The article discusses the strengths and weaknesses of how these methods are being implemented and applied; the ethical challenges their use raises; and the kinds of novel modes of interpretation, analysis, and representations of research findings they are producing.