Tag Archives: University of Toronto

Ethnography and its Promises, Uncertain or Otherwise: Highlights from CASCA 2014

The cupcakes have been eaten, the rhino gone to bed, and CASCA 2014 has come to an end. This year’s organizers should be proud at the stellar lineup they put together. Conference-goers had plenty of options to keep busy. After all was said and done, though, it was ethnography that kept emerging as the major preoccupation of the conference—what is it, how does one do it well, and, in the end, does it matter? read more…

  • dateMay 5, 2014
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  • posted byAnne
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Five Simple Steps for Helping Students Write Ethnographic Papers

In my last post, I made the case for having students attempt ethnographic papers in courses other than “methods.” By introducing early undergraduates to the pleasures of ethnography, I think we showcase anthropology’s strong suit, but more importantly, I think it is a great way to scaffold them into ways of writing and reading that will serve them well in both the social sciences and the humanities. In this second post, I share the steps I go through to squeeze an ethnographic experience into what are admittedly short, one-term courses (12 weeks). read more…

  • dateSeptember 11, 2013
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  • posted byLindsay A. Bell
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Teaching Culture and Methods to Novice/Non-Anthropologists

Ashley, an eager undergraduate student, arrived to my office exasperated. “My fieldwork isn’t about, like, anything! I must have, like, totally done it wrong.” Ashley had spent the afternoon observing interactions in the waiting room one of Toronto’s upscale tattoo parlours. Her visit was part of an assignment in my second-year linguistic anthropology course, “Culture and Communication.” Introducing undergraduates to ethnographic methods and writing is a highlight of our discipline… read more…

  • dateSeptember 5, 2013
  • comments3
  • posted byLindsay A. Bell
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