1. Full citation.
Marcus, G. E. (1995). Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited
Ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology, 24(1), 95–117.
doi:10.1146/annurev.an.24.100195.000523
2. Where did/does the author work, what else has s/he written about, and what are her/his
credentials?
“Marcus served as the Joseph D. Jamail Professor at Rice University,[1] where he chaired
the anthropology department for 25 years. He currently holds the position of Chancellor's
Professor at the University of California, Irvine, where he established a Center for Ethnography,
devoted to experiments and innovations in this form of inquiry.”1 Marcus has focused on a wide
variety of research topics ranging from social power, nobility, to anthropology in a global
context. Marcus was the founding editor of the journal Cultural Anthropology. He has also edited
numerous anthropologic articles and is a renowned intellectual in the field of anthropology.
3. What are the topics of the text? / 4. What is the main argument of the text? / 5. Describe
at least three ways that the argument is supported.
George E Marcus’ article Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of MultiSited Ethnography focuses on the concept of multi-sited ethnography. Marcus argues that at the
time period the article was written, new ethnographic research projects and methods were
developing which he calls multi-sited approaches that abandoned the previous single sited
approach to ethnography and analyzed cultures with respect to a broader, world-system view that
analyzed the complex network of factors that affect a given community. Marcus states that
single-sited ethnography was the norm in the anthropological community but that multi-sited
ethnography became increasingly popular “in response to empirical changes in the world and
therefore to transformed locations of cultural production. Empirically following the thread of
cultural process itself impels the move toward multi-sited ethnography.” (Marcus, 1995) Marcus
describes single sited anthropology as the study of specific societies or regional locations without
regard to the larger factors that affect the given society. Marcus emphasizes that this shift in
approach to anthropology is best represented by discussing the methodological terms involved
with multi-sited ethnography.
Marcus first articulates three methodological anxieties which he claims can develop
during the transition from single to multi sited ethnography: “(1) a concern about testing the
limits of ethnography, (2) a concern about attenuating the power of field work, and (3) a concern
about the loss of the subaltern. ” (Marcus, 1995) Marcus argues that “any ethnography of a
cultural formation in the world system is also an ethnography of the system, and therefore cannot
be understood only in terms of the conventional single-site mise-en-scene of ethnographic
research. ” (Marcus, 1995)
1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Marcus
(1) Marcus uses this notion about the nature of ethnography to contradict and
appease any notions that questions whether multi-sited ethnography is capable of
developing detailed analytical reports for different locations. Marcus argues that the goal
of multi-sited ethnography is not placing the specific region of study in a predefined
global sphere of culture, but rather analyzing a specific culture with respect to the global
sphere of influences on the specific culture, therefore a researcher can systematically
“map” the network of influences on a culture.
(2) Marcus argues that fieldwork, in the classical sense, of the term is already
multi-sited due to the variety of observations and sites which it generally crosses. For
further explanation, Marcus articulates the necessity of assembling numerous fieldwork
studies on various aspects during multi-sited research in order to develop an in depth
understanding of the culture being studied with respect to the larger sphere of context.
Marcus at the same time acknowledges the difficulty of this daunting task that “requires
considerably more nuancing and shading as the practice of translation connects the
several sites that the research explores along unexpected and even dissonant fractures of
social location. ” (Marcus, 1995) Marcus dissuades any questioning of the capability for
multi-sited ethnography to utilize fieldwork by stating that it is both necessary,
enhancing, and a skilled task that must be incorporated into multi-sited ethnographic
work.
(3) Marcus illustrates how traditional anthropology has focused on the subaltern. He
argues that multi-sited ethnography studies a variety of social classes, boththe subaltern, elite and
all levels in between during the path of constructing a multi-sited network of research findings
and significance. Marcus claims that this aspect of multi-sited ethnography allows for a new type
of comparison to emerge, one that poses questions about an unknown subject of study and uses
known facts from others to help determine the original unknowns. He claims that “This move
toward comparison embedded in the multi-sited ethnography stimulates accounts of cultures
composed in a landscape for which there is as yet no developed theoretical conception or
descriptive model. ” (Marcus, 1995)
Marcus emphasizes the relevance and connections between multi-sited ethnographies and
interdisciplinary areas of study. Due to multi-sited ethnographies’ involvement in the study of
multiple locals, Marcus argues that “redrawing the boundaries of topics of study…inevitably
causes overlap with the terrains being established by other interdisciplinary arenas.” He
illustrates a number of areas where the overlap occurs by prominent researchers. The most
demonstrative example, Marcus argues, is the research published in the journal Public Culture
by the independent Center for Transnational Cultural Studies in Chicago during the 1970s and
1980s that led to the “intersection of many diverse strands of cultural studies, broadly conceived
around issues of the rethinking of ideas of culture (especially questions of trans- and crosscultural production) in the face of contemporary world system changes. ” (Marcus, 1995) Marcus
conveys how Arjun Appadurai, one of the founding researchers of the project, wrote a popular
paper discussing how the “global cultural economy has provided a complex multi-sited vision for
research in this transnational domain that defies older practices of “locating” cultures(s) in
place(s). ” (Marcus, 1995) Marcus illustrates how research projects, similar to those published in
Public Culture, proliferate new multi-sited research designs and topics.
Markus attempts to convey certain modes of constructing multi-sited research within
individual research projects by detailing the methodologies for doing so. In order to most
efficiently outline them I will briefly describe those I found to be of significant importance:
 Follow the People: Essentially described by Marcus as the technique of researching the
movements of a specific subject group by remaining with them for an extended period of
time. Marcus describes this as the basic technique used since the inception of participant
observation and illustrates past studies which have done so, most notably Malinowski’s
Argonauts of the Western Pacific. Marcus claims that this method divulges the system
which the specific subject(s) of study are connected to and how it affects their culture
through direct participant observation of the culture as it transitions among locations.

Follow the Thing: This method involves the monitored research on a specific object,
mainly objects of trade or currency, as the object travels through a cultural network.
Marcus states that this method is primarily used in the ethnographic study of the capitalist
world-system and illustrates a few other notable studies which have employed this
technique.

The Strategically Situated (Single-Site) Ethnography: Marcus describes this technique as
where the researchers only focuses on one area of study and do not physically move with
the subject group of study, similar to single-sited ethnography, yet they still manage to
create a network analysis of the larger system that affects the culture of study. Where this
methodology differs from typical single-site techniques is that it utilizes information
derived from the study of the subject group at one location to surmise what occurs at
others. “The strategically situated ethnography attempts to understand something broadly
about the system in ethnographic terms as much as it does its local subjects: It is only
local circumstantially, thus situating itself in a context or field quite differently than does
other single-site ethnography. ” (Marcus, 1995) Marcus argues that there are key subtle
aspects of cultural behavior that can tip off the ethnographer to matters otherwise
invisible in the direct frame of observation. Marcus illustrates several studies which
demonstrate observations that keyed researchers into other aspects of their subject’s lives.
Marcus states that “the most important form of local knowledge in which the
multi-sited ethnographer is interested is that which parallels the ethnographer's own
interest- in mapping itself. ” (Marcus, 1995) He elaborates and emphasizes that
ethnographers should remain vigilant for discourses among objects of study that involve
the discussion of information which the ethnographer himself is interested in. Marcus
conveys how through this method researchers can expose the complex mapping that a
multi-sited project would reveal without directly conducting multi-sited research.

The other methods mentioned are Follow the Plot, Story or Allegory, Follow the Life or
Biography and Follow the Conflict and their basic meaning can be interpreted from their
names.
Marcus concludes his essay by discussing the roles of ethnographers as activists. He
claims that “the movement among sites (and levels of society) lends a character of activism to
[multi-sited research] …and that it is activism quite specific and circumstantial to the conditions
of doing multi-sited research itself. ” (Marcus, 1995) Marcus states that ethnographers take on
numerous identities throughout multi-sited research due to the nature of the methods employed,
and that while taking on these various identities they are subjected to various relationships and
cultural setting which “generates a definite sense of doing more than just ethnography, and it is
this quality that provides a sense of being an activist. ” (Marcus, 1995) Marcus also illustrates
how ethnographers can develop activism second-hand through the study of other individuals that
are more closely involved with actual participant observation activities, and that this can instill a
“psychological substitute for the reassuring sense of ‘being there’,” (Marcus, 1995) into the
ethnographer, substituting the actions conducted by traditional single-site fieldworkers.
6. What three quotes capture the message of the text?
“Although multi-sited ethnography is an exercise in mapping terrain; its goal is not holistic
representation, an ethnographic portrayal of the world system as a totality. Rather, it claims that any
ethnography of a cultural formation in the world system is also an ethnography of the system, and
therefore cannot be understood only in terms of the conventional single-site mise-en-scene of
ethnographic research, assuming indeed it is the cultural formation, produced in several different locales,
rather than the conditions of a particular set of subjects that is the object of study.” (Marcus, 1995)
“Instead, multi-sited ethnography is intellectually constructed in terms of the specific constructions and
discourses appearing within a number of highly self-conscious interdisciplinary arenas that use the
diverse high theoretical capital that inspires postmodernism to reconfigure the conditions for the study of
contemporary cultures and societies.” (Marcus, 1995)
“The movement among sites (and levels of society) lends a character of activism to [multi-sited
research] …and that it is activism quite specific and circumstantial to the conditions of doing
multi-sited research itself. … This condition of shifting personal positions in relation to one's
subjects and other active discourses in a field that overlap with one's own generates a definite
sense of doing more than just ethnography, and it is this quality that provides a sense of being an
activist for and against positioning in even the most self-perceived apolitical fieldworker.”
(Marcus, 1995)
7. What three questions about research methods does this article leave you with?
This article was one of the more descriptive articles I have read in terms of describing the
actual methodologies that an ethnographer can employ when attempting to conduct what Marcus
refers to as multi-sited ethnography. From other anthropological readings I have absorbed a
sense that a multi-sited approach is necessary in today’s modern world due to the vast networks
of factors that affect communities of study. These facts leave with three questions about the
article:
1. Marcus conveys that multi-sited ethnography involves studying both up and down
within social hierarchies. What methods should be employed when attempting to
study up? Is one of the ones listed capable of achieving this?
2. Marcus argues that a researcher who only studies a society in one locations can
understand some aspects of the society that are not directly visible in the current
frame in the context of other locations through second-hand information derived
from studying so called “cultural producers”. How can the validity and
accurateness of this information be guaranteed? Is the essence of ethnography not
the act of analyzing and interpreting observed cultural aspects? I believe that
studying these so cultural producers would produce and interpretation derived
from the producers’ point of view, making the primary topic of study the culture
of the producers and not the original intended society.
3. How have the methodologies proposed by Marcus changed in the 17 years that
have gone by since he wrote this article? Or do they still retain the essential
essence that he proposed?
8. What three points, details or references from the text did you follow up on to advance
your understanding of and skill with HASS research methods?
1. In an attempt to further comprehend the question explained in question 1 above, I
examined Haraway’s research mentioned by Marcus which he claims illustrates
the capability of multi-sited ethnography to study up within society.
a.
Haraway D. 1 99 1 . Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the
privilege of partial perspective. In Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of
Nature, pp. 1 83-202. New York: Routledge
2. To follow up on question number 2 above I examined the study in further detail
by Paul Willis entitled Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get
Working Class Jobs, which Marcus claims illustrates “how some ethnography
may not move around literally but may nonetheless embed itself in a multi-sited
context.” (Marcus, 1995)
a.
Willis P. 1981. Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs.
New York: Columbia Univ. Press
3. In order to understand how multi-sited approaches have evolved since the time
when Marcus wrote this article I attempted to find articles which discussed this
topic. While I did not find any directly comparing the methods between now and
then, I did find an article from 2006 entitled Localizing Climate Change: A MultiSited Approach by Werner Krauss. (Werner Krauss, n.d.)
a. Werner Krauss. (n.d.). Localizing Climate Change: A Multi-Sited Approach. Retrieved
November 27, 2012, from
http://www.academia.edu/1587218/Localizing_Climate_Change_A_MultiSited_Approach