Journal of Contemporary Ethnography current issue

Annie Marion MacLean, Feminist Pragmatist and Methodologist

Deegan, M. J., Hill, M. R., Wortmann, S. L. — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:22:54 PST

Annie Marion MacLean was a major Chicago sociologist and methodologist. She was profoundly influenced by the gendered division of labor in sociology during her era. MacLean combined her work with the men and women of the early Chicago school of sociology and the women of Hull-House, an early social settlement. As a feminist pragmatist, MacLean was both a theorist and practitioner who used qualitative and quantitative methods. She set precedents in the Chicago school of ethnography, participant observation, and critical methodology. MacLean, however, was not the "mother" of ethnography. Harriet Martineau holds a far stronger claim to be a founding contributor to the origin and development of ethnographic methodologies in the social sciences.

There's Something About Annie: Rejoinder to Deegan, Hill, and Wortmann's Comment on MacLean

Hallett, T., Jeffers, G., Bowman, E. — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:22:55 PST

Don't Ask, Don't Tell: Coming Out in an Alcoholic Family

Tillmann, L. M. — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:22:55 PST

This article invites readers inside emotional and relational dynamics of coming out as gay in an alcoholic family system. Taking an interpretive approach to research, focused on how participants make sense of and make meaning from their lived experience, "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" offers a longitudinal and narrative ethnographic account of family secrecy and disclosure.

Behind the Baton: Exploring Autoethnographic Writing in a Musical Context

Bartleet, B.-L. — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:22:55 PST

In this article, the author considers how music can expand the creative possibilities of autoethnography. Likewise, the author explores how autoethnography can offer musicians a means to reflect on their creative work in culturally insightful ways. To "play out" these disciplinary considerations, the author crafts an autoethnographic narrative that centers on her own creative practice as a conductor. Moving between description and action, dialogue and introspection, the narrative reveals some of the complexities of reflecting and writing about music in this way. While this narrative is grounded in the author’s lived experiences, it reveals significant broader issues about the process of doing autoethnography, the conducting profession, and the culture and practice of music-making at large.

The Pointer Sisters: Creating Cartographies of the Present

Roets, G., Roose, R., Claes, L., Verstraeten, M., Vandekinderen, C. — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:22:55 PST

In this article, acquired knowledge is considered as a temporary reflection that expresses the enactment of a social life that produces and reproduces social realities. Researchers need to engage with an open-ended process of de- and reconstruction of meanings between many players of the social world. As the poststructuralists Deleuze and Guattari reveal, our knowledge base is inherently trapped in lines of flight, on a voyage for which there pre-exists no map. For researchers involved with a reconstructive move, we explore and apply their concept of the map (cartography) as a potentially innovative methodological and analytical approach. Creating cartographies of the present allows researchers to deal with uncertainties, complexities and effects of surprise as participants in the production of knowledge, so to create sustainable and innovative understandings of situations and realities with research subjects.