Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Ethnography
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Katz, J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

From How to Why

On Luminous Description and Causal Inference in Ethnography (part 2)

Jack Katz

University of California, Los Angeles, USA jackkatz{at}soc.ucla.edu

Ethnographers often start fieldwork by focusing on descriptive tasks that will enable them to answer questions about how social life proceeds, and then they work toward explaining more formally why patterns appear in their data. Making the transition from `how?' to `why?' can be a dilemma, but the ethnographer's folk culture provides especially useful clues. By dwelling on their appreciation of especially luminous data, ethnographers can light the path to causal inference. In this, the second of a two-part article, four of seven forms for characterizing the rhetorical effectiveness of ethnographic data are illustrated and the distinctive resources they offer for causal explanation are analyzed.

Key Words: ethnography • methodology • analytic induction • reading practices • science studies • history of social sciences • fieldwork • sociology of knowledge

Ethnography, Vol. 3, No. 1, 63-90 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/1466138102003001003
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 EthnographyHome page
M. L. Small
`How many cases do I need?': On science and the logic of case selection in field-based research
Ethnography, March 1, 2009; 10(1): 5 - 38.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Qual Health ResHome page
B. Freidin and S. Timmermans
Complementary and Alternative Medicine for Children's Asthma: Satisfaction, Care Provider Responsiveness, and Networks of Care
Qual Health Res, January 1, 2008; 18(1): 43 - 55.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Health (London)Home page
S. Timmermans
Why modest geographic effects for asthma? Pharmaceutical treatment as neutralizing mechanism
Health (London) , October 1, 2007; 11(4): 431 - 454.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Prog Hum GeogrHome page
M. Crang
Qualitative methods: there is nothing outside the text?
Progress in Human Geography, April 1, 2005; 29(2): 225 - 233.
[PDF]

Home page
 EthnographyHome page
D. Vaughan
Theorizing Disaster: Analogy, historical ethnography, and the Challenger accident
Ethnography, September 1, 2004; 5(3): 315 - 347.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Int J Offender Ther Comp CriminolHome page
R. V. J. Basso, J. Graham, W. Pelech, T. DeYoung, and R. Cardey
Children's Street Connections in a Canadian Community
Int J Offender Ther Comp Criminol, April 1, 2004; 48(2): 189 - 202.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 EthnographyHome page
D. Harper
Framing Photographic Ethnography: A Case Study
Ethnography, June 1, 2003; 4(2): 241 - 266.
[Abstract] [PDF]