About the Center for Ethnography

The Center for Ethnography supports continuing innovation in the practice, expression and theorization of ethnography, the signature method and genre of cultural anthropology with ever widening uptake in other disciplines and beyond the university. Since established in 2006, the Center has hosted a diverse array of projects and seminars – experimenting with ethnographic “para-sites,” for example, theorizing ethnography after theory, and deliberating the processes and ends of ethnographic collaboration.  

The Center’s 2018-2019 programming will include its long-running seminar series (newly titled Tuning Ethnography), and a multifaceted program focused on “Visualization in Ethnography.”  The latter will include a thematic seminar series, Visualization Across Disciplines, a design project, Visualizing Toxic Subjects, and a “field works” project, Soiled Grounds, in which groups of ethnographers travel together to various sites exploring a shared theme, sharing fieldnotes as they go. All programming is open to all and can be joined locally or from a distance. Student participation is also welcome. Follow the links for more details on each program.

In 2018-2019, the Center will also start a multi-year experiment with the Platform for Experimental, Collaborative Ethnography, an open source, open access digital infrastructure that allows distributed ethnographers to work in tandem, sharing, analyzing and expressing ethnographic data in new ways. PECE will extend the Center’s engagement with new ethnographic forms while also supporting wide involvement in Center activities, drawing other people from near and far to take ethnography in new directions.