Contributions of Ethnography to Gendered Sociology: the French Jazz World

In the last few years a number of studies have explored the epistemological uses of the ethnographer’s gender in sociological research and the effects of gender on research results. These studies aim either to analyze how ethnographers can use their “gender” to open up observational possibilities, or to analyze observations made while maintaining as much control as possible over the conditions of their sociological interpretation. But relatively few papers discuss using ethnography to study gendered social relations. This article applies that approach to the observations made in our field study of the “world” of French jazz. We present here three of the main ways that the epistemological enrichment offered by ethnography may in turn enrich analysis of gender relations: access to “invisible” practices, analysis in terms of “the arrangement between the sexes", the possibility of generalization.