Jan Marontate
School of Communication
Spring 2010
Simon Fraser University
(Burnaby)
CMNS 801-5: Design and Methodology in Communication Research
Handout 12: Readings on Oral History Methodology and Critical Ethnography
Required and recommended readings on Oral History Methodology (prepared by Megan
Robertson and Liz Schulze) and on critical ethnography (prepared by Shivaun Corey)
Required Reading (Oral History)
Lawler, Steph. (2008). Stories and the Social World. In Michael Pickering (Ed.) Research
Methods for Cultural Studies. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Lawler examines the “ways in which stories – or narratives – become social and cultural
resources through which people engage in sense-making” (32-33). Building on the sharing of
memory narratives as engaging in a type of social contract, the author discusses the various
stages of producing, analyzing, and interpreting narratives. Lawler views the circulation of
social creation and circulation of stories as a three step process where the production and
analysis of any narrative is framed by an overall research narrative.
An ONE of:
Frank, A. (2002). Why study people's stories? The dialogical ethics of narrative analysis.
International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 1 (1), Article 6.
http://www.ualberta.ca/~iiqm/backissues/1_1Final/pdf/frankeng.pdf
OR
Gubrium, Jaber F. and James A Hostein. (1998). Narrative practice and the coherence of
personal stories. Sociological Quarterly 39, (1): 163-87
Available on-line through SFU library
The authors provide a vocabulary for discussing the reflexive interaction of stories and
storytelling in organizational and institutional contexts. “Analytic bracketing” is promoted as
an investigatory tool that allows researchers critically aspects of narrative as individual units
without deconstructing the narrative as a whole. Using case studies, the authors relate the
process of creating a research question for biographic accounts, locating narrative data, and
interpreting findings within educational and medical institutions. The authors also discuss
some of the challenges of narrative attribution and narrative control in everyday storytelling.
Required Reading (Critical Ethnography)
Qualitative Research: (Critical) Ethnography Guidelines (n.d.). TESOL Quarterly Retrieved
on February 7, 2010, retrieved from:
http://www.tesol.org/s_tesol/sec_document.asp?CID=476&DID=2157
Although this a guide for submissions the journal TESOL Quarterly, it provides an excellent,
very brief introduction to what critical ethnography is, what critical ethnographers do, and
what is expected of a critical ethnographic journal article. The final paragraph also contains
many useful definitions related to qualitative research in general.
Madison, S.D. (n.d.) Introduction to Critical Ethnography: Theory and Method (Chapter
One -- proof). Retrieved on February 7th, 2008 from:
http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/4957_Madison_I_Proof_Chapter_1.pdf
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This is an on-line proof of the introductory chapter in Madison, D. S. (2005). Critical
Ethnography. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage. I have included this proof as the published book
is not available on-line and it differs very little from the published work. This opening
chapter discusses the “complicated and contentious undertaking” (p. 4) of representing the
other and the ethical difficulties of conducting ethnographic research. The author does this
by exploring concepts such as positionality, the nexus of method and theory, and dialogue.
In addition, she presents a brief historical overview of critical ethnography from British
functionalism to post-positivism.
Recommended Readings (Oral History)
Bamberg, Michael. (2006) “Biographic-Narrative Research, Quo Vadis? A Critical Review
of ‘Big Stories’ from the Perspective of ‘Small Stories’”. In Milnes, K Iet al.(ed.)
Narrative, memory and knowledge. Representations, aesthetics and contexts. U.
Huddersfield Press, pp. 1-17.
Ellis, Carolyn. (2004). The Ethnographic “I.” New York: AltaMira Press.
The author offers a fictional auto-ethnographical account of teaching a qualitative
methodology course on auto-ethnography. The challenges and benefits of “combining
literary and ethnographic techniques [allow Ellis] to create a story to engage readers in
methodological concerns” (xx). Ellis defends narrative accounts as having theoretical and
methodological value and while this volume offers a lengthy description of how one’s
personal life is inseperable from one’s research it demonstrates how to successfully
incorporate academic and auto-biographical writing. The work also includes a
comprehensive bibliography.
Gubrium, Jaber F. and James A Hostein. (2009). Analyzing Narrative Reality. Los Angeles:
Sage.
The authors outline four keys areas of narrative ethnography: identifying empirical material,
the reflexive interaction of narrative construction, contextual environments of storytelling,
and narrative adequacy (who and what makes a good story?). Gubrium and Hostein stress
the need to go beyond textual analysis and attend to the production and circulation of stories
in everyday life. Each chapter includes suggestions on how researchers might orient
themselves to particular avenues of narrative investigation including: narrative linking,
collaboration, performance, power, locality, status, and intertextuality. Specific examples
drawn from a wide-range of research take the reader “into the field” in an attempt to
illustrate narrative ethnography in practice.
Zerubavel, Eviatar. (2003). Time Maps: Collective Memory and the Social Shape of the Past.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Zerubavel argues for “sociomental topography” a way of understanding collective memory.
The author focuses on “mnemonic communities” – the examples used in the text are largely
national, ethnic, and religious groups – who share a common construction of the past. In
attempting to produce “time maps” which graph conceptions of history, Zerubavel examines
different ways of narrating history which rely on plotting key points along a continuous, or
discontinuous, trajectory that relates the past to the present. The author offers a valuable
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vocabulary and categorization system in an effort to make possible trans-historical and
cross-cultural comparisons.
Klempner, Mark. (1998) “Navigating Life Review Interviews with Survivors of Trauma”. In
Perks, R. and A. Thomson. (Eds). The Oral History Reader. Routledge, pp. 198-210.
Klempner discusses some of the challenges of interviewing trauma survivors, specifically in
one’s own response to the information provided by the subject. He employes a theoretical
model by Dr. Dori Laub, an authority on traumatology and an oral historian, to approach
the interviewer’s role in potentially helping the trauma survivor to use the sharing of an oral
history to “re-externalize” an internalized traumatic event. Klempner reviews the
interviewer’s potential blocks to achieving these possible outcomes of oral testimonial,
outlining the value of understanding the “defensive positions” that can be the result of
receiving and interacting with traumatic oral testimony.
Sipe, Dan. (1998) “Oral History and Moving Images”. In Perks, R. and A. Thomson.
(Eds). The Oral History Reader. Routledge, pp. 406-415.
Acknowledging that most oral history projects still employ sound recording exclusively, Sipe
argues that video recording, despite its potential obtrusiveness, offers additional means of
engaging oral history’s central issues of memory and subjectivity. His discussion suggests
that the written historical document (as the central focus of the historical profession) is
directly and structurally in contrast to the moving image, capable of providing a “new level
of evidence for oral history” and a potentially reflexive view of history as constructed
narrative.
Frisch, Michael. (1998) “Oral History and the Digital Revolution”. In In Perks, R. and A.
Thomson. (Eds). The Oral History Reader. Routledge, pp. 102-114.
Frisch argues that the power of digitization of oral history recordings (from tape format)
allows for an instant accessibility of information, coupled with the equalizing and
democratizing effects of digital, online access, allow oral historians to move beyond the
technical to the “intellectual and even philosophical” challenges found in the material. New
software allows for a qualitative analysis of visual and audio content, allowing archivists to
better map and cross-reference content, and to approach materials using new and intensely
interactive techniques.
Anderson, Kathryn and Jack, Dana. (1998) “Learning to Listen: Interview Techniques and
Analyses”. In Perks, R. and A. Thomson. (Eds). The Oral History Reader.
Routledge, pp. 129-142.
Approaching oral history from a feminist perspective, Anderson & Jack discuss the specific
techniques of listening within the context of an oral history interview, describing the
methods used to “listen in stereo” to the interviewee’s sharing of both facts and sub-textual
feelings. This article invites a holistic, subtle, interactive, and intuitive approach to
interviewing can move beyond simply factual accounts.
Recommended Readings (Critical Ethnography)
Thomas, J. (1993). Doing Critical Ethnography. Calif: Sage (3 -6).
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These pages of this introductory text offer an interesting perspective on the difference
between traditional and critical ethnography. Unfortunately, google books omits page four
but the full book can be found in the Bennet library.
Mathers, A. and Novelli, M. (2002). Researching Resistance to Neoliberal Globalization:
Engaged Ethnography as Solidarity and Praxis. Globalizations, 4 (2), 229-249.
This article will be interesting to many in the class not only because of its method but also
because of its topic of study. The authors “investigate the process of carrying out
ethnographic studies of organized resistance to neoliberal globalization” (p.229) drawing on
the work of noted anti-globalization theorists Bordieu and Santos.
Simon, R.I and Dippo, S. (1986). On Critical Ethnographic Work. Anthropology &
Education Quarterly, 17 (4), 195-202
This article is an oft-cited, though somewhat dated, introduction to critical ethnography. Of
particular interest is the authors’ situation of critical ethnography within the public sphere,
where it can act as a catalyst for social change.
Linda Brodkey, (1987). Writing Critical Ethnographic Narratives. Anthropology &
Education Quarterly, 18 (2), 67-76.
In this article, the author discusses the issues and practices such as the negative critique the
ethnographic narrative and cultural hegemony. Of particular interest is her discussion of
writing critical ethnographies within the academe -- which is traditionally supposed to be
non-biased.
Young, J. "Mayhem, Magic, and Margaret Mead: Towards A Critical Ethnography" Paper
presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology on. 2009-05-24.
Retrieved on February 7th, 2010 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p126400_index.html
Instead of simply discussing what critical ethnography is or putting it into practice, as the
other articles and book chapters on this list have, this article discusses why there is a need
for critical ethnography, particularly in relation to the study of crime. The author suggests
that the conditions of late-modernity demand an examination of not just narratives, but
meta-narratives, when conducting ethnographic research.
Foly, D.E. (2002). Critical ethnography: the reflexive turn. International Journal of
Qualitative Studies in Education, 15 (4), 469-490.
This paper explores an issue near and dear to me, that of reflexivity in academic writing.
The author advocates the intermingling of biography and ethnography to create a style of
“cultural Marxist” writing. Foly also highlights the importance of writing in plain (nonacademic) language, understood by all people, if one is to create social change – the alleged
goal of critical ethnography.