Suggested Readings

An always incomplete list of suggested readings on ethnography. To suggest additions, please provide in the comments section below, and we will incorporate them into the list.

On the Ethnographic Method & Theory

Adjepong, Anima. 2017. “Invading Ethnography: A Queer of Color Reflexive Practice.” Ethnography.

Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. 1992. An invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Burawoy, Michael. 1998. ‘The extended case method.” Sociological Theory 16(1):4-33.

Collins, Patricia Hill. 1986. “Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought.” Social Problems 33:14-32.

Collins, Patricia Hill. 1990. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman.

Collins, Patricia Hill. 1998. “On Race, Gender, and Science: Black Women as Objects and
Agents of Sociological Knowledge,” pp. 95-123 in Fighting Words: Black Women and the
Search for Justice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Compton, D’Lane, Tey Meadow, and Kristen Schilt (Eds.). 2018. Other, Please Specify: Queer Methods in Sociology. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Davis, Dána-Ain, and Christa Craven. 2016. Feminist Ethnography: Thinking through Methodologies, Challenges, and Possibilities. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.

Desmond, Matthew. 2014. “Relational Ethnography.” Theory and Society 43:547-579.

Esterberg, Kristin. Qualitative Methods in Social Research. Boston: McGraw.

González-López, Gloria. 2010. “Ethnographic Lessons: Researching Incest in Mexican Families.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 39(5):569–81.

González-López, Gloria. 2011. “Mindful Ethics: Comments on Informant-Centered Practices in Sociological Research.” Qualitative Sociology 23:447-461.

Hanson, Rebecca and Patricia Richards. 2017. “Sexual Harassment and the Construction of Ethnographic Knowledge.” Sociological Forum 32(3):587-609.

Haraway, Donna. 1988. “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Feminist Studies 14(3):575-599.

Katz, Jack. 1997. “Ethnography’s warrants.” Sociological Methods & Research 25(4):391-423.

Katz, Jack. 2001. ‘From How to Why: On Luminous Description and Causal Inference in Ethnography (Part I).’ Ethnography 2(4):443-473.

Katz, Jack. 2002. ‘From How to Why: On Luminous Description and Causal Inference in Ethnography (Part 2).’ Ethnography 3(1):63-90.

Kleinman, Sherryl, and Martha Copp. “Emotions and Fieldwork.” Qualitative Research Methods 28.

Luker, Kristin. 2008. Salsa Dancing into the Social Sciences: Research in an Age of Info-Glut. Harvard University Press.

McCorkel, Jill, and Kristen Myers. 2003. “What Difference does Difference Make?: Position and Privilege in the Field.” Qualitative Sociology 26(2):199-231.

Mohanty, Chandra. 1984. Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses. Durham: Duke University Press.

Naples, Nancy. 2003. Feminism and Method: Ethnography, Discourse Analysis, and Activist
Research. New York: Routledge.

O’Shaughnessy, Sara and Naomi Krogman. 2012. “A Revolution Reconsidered? Examining the Practice of Qualitative Research in Feminist Scholarship.” Signs (37)12: 493-520.

Pugh, Allison J. 2013. “What Good Are Interviews for Thinking About Culture? Demystifying Interpretive Analysis.” American Journal of Cultural Sociology 1(1):42-68.

Schilt, Kristen and Christine L. Williams. 2008. “Access Denied.” Men and Masculinities 11(2):219-226.

Simmonds, Felly Nkweto. 1999. “My Body, Myself: How Does a Black Woman Do Sociology?” Pp. 50-63 in Feminist Theory and the Body: A Reader, edited by J. Price and M. Shildrick. New York: Routledge.

Stacey, Judith. 1988. “Can There be a Feminist Ethnography?” Women’s Studies International Forum 11(1):21-27.

Valocchi, Stephen. 2005. “Not Yet Queer Enough: The Lessons of Queer Theory for the Sociology of Gender and Sexuality.” Gender & Society 19(6):750-770.

Wacquant, Loic. 2002. “Scrutinizing the Street: Poverty, Morality, and the Pitfalls of Urban Ethnography.” American Journal of Sociology 107(6):1468-1532.

Weiss, Robert. 1994. Learning from Strangers: the Art and Method of Qualitative Interview Studies. New York: Free Press.

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Suggested Ethnographies

Bank-Muñoz, Carolina. 2008. Transnational Tortillas: Race, Gender, and Shop-Floor Politics in Mexico and the United States. Cornell University Press. 

Bettie, Julie. 2003. Women without class: Girls, Race, and Identity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Bernstein, Elizabeth. 2007. Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Britton, Dana. 2003. At Work in the Iron Cage: The Prison as Gendered Organization. New York: NYU Press.

Cantu, Lionel. 2009. The Sexuality of Migration: Border Crossings and Mexican Immigrant Men. New York: NYU Press.

Collins, Jane L. and Victoria Mayer. 2010. Both Hands Tied: Welfare Reform and the Race to the Bottom in the Low-Wage Labor Market. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Connell, Catherine. 2014. School’s Out: Gay and Lesbian Teachers in the Classroom. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Desmond, Matthew. 2007. On the Fireline: Living and Dying with Wildland Firefighters. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Elliott, Sinikka. 2012. Not My Kid: What Parents Believe about the Sex Lives of Their Teenagers. New York: New York University Press.

Fields, Jessica. 2008. Risky Lessons: Sex Education and Social Inequality. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press

Ferguson, Anne Arnett. 2001. Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity. University of Michigan Press.

González-López, Gloria. 2015. Family Secrets: Stories of Incest and Sexual Violence in Mexico. New York: NYU Press.

Hoang, Kimberly. 2015. Dealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

McCorkel, Jill. 2013. Breaking Women: Gender, Race, and the New Politics of Imprisonment. New York: NYU Press.

Kang, Miliann. 2010. The Managed Hand: Race, Gender, and the Body in Beauty Service Work. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Mojola, Sanyu. 2014. Love, Money, and HIV: Becoming a Modern African Woman in the Age of AIDS. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Moore, Mignon. 2011. Invisible Families: Gay Identities, Relationships, and Motherhood among Black Women. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Lareau, Annette. 2003. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Pachirat, Timothy. 2013. Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Parreñas, Rhacel. 2011. Illicit Flirtations: Labor, Migration, and Sex Trafficking in Tokyo. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Pascoe, CJ. 2011. Dude you’re a fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 

Patillo, Mary. 2013. Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril Among the Black Middle Class. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Pugh, Allison. 2009. Longing and Belonging: Parents, Children, and Consumer Culture. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Salinger, Leslie. 2003. Genders in Production: Making Workers in Mexico’s Global Factories. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Stein, Arlene. 2002. The Stranger Next Door:The Story of a Small Community’s Battle over Sex, Faith, and Civil Rights. Beacon Press.

Wacquant, Loic. 2004. Body & Soul. New York: Oxford University Press.

Ward, Jane. 2008. Respectably Queer. Vanderbilt University Press.

Williams, Christine. 2006. Inside Toyland: Working, Shopping, and Social Inequality. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Older works

Bourgois, Phillippe. 1996. In Search of Respect: Selling crack in El Barrio. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Foner, Nancy. 1994. The Caregiving Dilemma (U. California Press, 1994).

Gibson, James William. 1994. Warrior Dreams. Hill and Wang.

Ginsburg, Faye. 1989. Contested Lives: The Abortion Debate in an American Community. University of California Press.

Hochschild, Arlie. The Second Shift (Avon, 1989); The Managed Heart (U. California Press, 1983); The Time Bind (Metropolitan, 1997).

Kaplan, Elaine Bell. 1997. Not our Kind of Girl: Unraveling the Myths of Black Teenage Motherhood. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Leidner, Robin. 1993. Fast Food, Fast Talk: Service Work and the Routinization of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Rollins, Judith. 1985. Between Women: Domestics and their Employers Temple Univ. Press.

Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 1993. Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Stacey, Judy. 1990. Brave New Families. Basic Books.

Thorne, Barrie, 1993. Gender Play. Rutgers University Press.

Willis, Paul. 1977. Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs. New York: Columbia University Press.