Dialogues with Ethnography

Notes on Classics, and How I Read Them

By (author) Dr. Jan Blommaert

Publication date:

05 January 2018

Publisher

Multilingual Matters

Dimensions:

210x148mm
6x8"

ISBN-13: 9781783099504

This book persuasively argues the case that ethnography must be viewed as a full theoretical system, rather than just as a research method. Blommaert traces the influence of his reading of classic works about ethnography on his thinking, and discusses a range of authors who have influenced the development of a theoretical system of ethnography, or whose work might be productively used to develop it further. Authors examined include Hymes, Scollon, Kress, Bourdieu, Bakhtin and Lefebvre. This book will be required reading for students and scholars involved in ethnographic research, or those interested in the theory of ethnography.

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter 1: Ethnography as Couter-Hegemony: Remarks on Epistemology and Method

Chapter 2: Obituary: Dell H. Hymes (1927-2009)

Chapter 3: Ethnography and Democracy: Hymes’ Political Theory of Language

Chapter 4: Ethnopoetics as Functional Reconstruction: Dell Hymes’ Narrative View of the World

Chapter 5: Grassroots Historiography and the Problem of Voice: Tshibumba’s Histoire Du Zaïre

Chapter 6: Historical Bodies and Historical Space

Chapter 7: Semiotic and Spatial Scope: Towards a Materialist Semiotics

Chapter 8: Pierre Bourdieu and Language in Society

Chapter 9: Combining Surveys and Ethnographies in the Study of Rapid Social Change

Chapter 10: Data Sharing As Entextualization Practice

Chapter 11: Chronotopes, Scales and Complexity in the Study of Language in Society

Chapter 12: Marxism and Urban Culture

Chapter 13: On Scope and Depth in Linguistic Ethnography: A Commentary

References

Once again, Jan Blommaert advances the field of sociolinguistics in this indispensable collection of insightful and thought-provoking essays on the importance of ethnography in helping us make sense of language, culture, and society in our complex and fascinating world. Written in a clear and accessible style, this book will become essential reading for its intellectual rigor, scope and depth.