Explorations in Ecclesiology and Ethnography (Studies in Ecclesiology and Ethnography)

by Christian B. Scharen

No ethnographies emerge “from nowhere”; all are a product of a particular — or several — individual(s), located within a particular cultural and academic context, the result of a particular set of questions being asked in a particular way of a particular community at a particular time. If the context of the community under study is historically situated, so is the context of the ethnographer conducting the study. These constraints are inescapable, and the question of how they are negotiated through practical research strategies and epistemological discussion is not easily resolved. Many acknowledge their situatedness as authors, and then write their ethnographies with no further reference to this observation.