Ethnographic Practice in the Present

In its assessment of the current "state of play" of ethnographic practice in social anthropology, this volume explores the challenges that changing social forms and changing understandings of "the field" pose to contemporary ethnographic methods. These challenges include the implications of the remarkable impact social anthropology is having on neighboring disciplines such as history, sociology, cultural studies, human geography and linguistics, as well as the potential ‘costs’ of this success for the discipline. Contributors also discuss how the ethnographic method is influenced by current institutional contexts and historical "traditions" across a range of settings. Here ethnography is featured less as a methodological "tool-box" or technique but rather as a subject on which to reflect.

Marit Melhuus is Professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo. Her earlier work has been on issues of gender, morality and change in Latin America, and her publications include Machos, Mistresses, Madonnas. Contesting the Power of Latin American Gender Imagery (co-edited with Kristi Anne Stølen, Verso, 1996). Her current research concerns biotechnology, kinship, and law, and she has published numerous articles on these questions. Recent publications include Holding Worlds Together. Ethnographies of Truth and Belonging (co-edited with Marianne Lien, Berghahn, 2007) and La Norvège, vues de l’intérieur, a special issue of Ethnologie francaise (jointly edited with Sophie Chevalier and Marianne Lien, 2009).