The Ethnographic Self: Fieldwork and the Representation of Identity

by Amanda Coffey

What are the relationships between the self and fieldwork? How do personal, emotional and identity issues impact upon working in the field? This book argues that ethnographers, and others involved in fieldwork, should be aware of how fieldwork research and ethnographic writing construct, reproduce and implicate selves, relationships and personal identities. All too often research methods texts remain relatively silent about the ways in which fieldwork affects us and we affect the field. The book attempts to synthesize accounts of the personal experience of ethnography. In doing so, the author makes sense of the process of fieldwork research as a set of practical, intellectual and emotional accomplishments. The book is

Genres: Nonfiction, Theory

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Amanda Coffey is Professor in Social Sciences and Dean of Education in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cardiff University, UK. Her research interests centre on ethnographic and qualitative research, and include work on young people and social change, gender and education and working lives. Amanda Coffey’s publications include Researching Young People, with Hall (2011), Key Themes in Qualitative Research, with Atkinson and Delamont (2003), Education and Social Change (2001) and The Ethnographic Self (1999).