This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by GREEN, B. S. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Learning from Henry Mayhew

The Role of the Impartial Spectator in Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor

York University

The almost forgotten ethnographer, Henry Mayhew, is shown to be of methodological relevance to contemporary ethnography in the context of current hesitations, doubts, and rejections of "realist" ethnography. Through invoking Adam Smith's concept of the impartial spectator and applying it to Mayhew's textual practice of ethnography, the article seeks to find a way between the entrenched polemical positions called realistic and poetic ethnography. This is done, however, by describing an appealing working model rather than engaging in epistemological prescription.

Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Vol. 31, No. 2, 99-134 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/0891241602031002001


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				J. Scanlan In Deadly Time: The lasting on of waste in Mayhew's London Time Society, September 1, 2007; 16(2-3): 189 - 206. [Abstract] [PDF]