On Becoming an Ethnographer

Ethnographers shape a research self as they work through a series of existential choices. Self-defining choices must be made on: the genre or overall narrative logic of the text to be produced, how to handle experiences of awkwardness when interacting with subjects, how to understand one’s difficulties in understanding subjects, whether to be drawn into debates in popular culture, whether to assess progress in relation to improvements made or in relation to abstract standards defining perfect knowledge, and whether to understand evidentiary questions within a reflection or a pragmatist logic of truth. These are existential challenges in that, while alternative responses can be equally productive, in each project practical limits press the researcher to choose among inconsistent paths; the alternatives are as consequential when ignored as when reflectively weighed; the choices made implicate the researcher’s personality as a whole; and over time the choices shape the researcher’s working sensibility. The freedom of ethnographic fieldwork makes it at once an especially democratic methodology, immediately open to all who would advance knowledge of society, and an especially fateful crucible for defining the adult self.