Abstract
This chapter introduces postcritical ethnography. Addressing its location in relationship to critical ethnography and postmodernism, the authors outline similarities and differences across critical ethnography, the reflexively critical postcritical ethnography, and the post-structural post-critical ethnography. These forms of ethnography are described as a set of understandings: power, particularity, partiality, provisionality, participation, (our own) person, positionality, perspectives, and possibilities. The chapter ends with the logic of the book and descriptions of the chapters that follow.
References
Abu-Lughod, L. (1991). Writing against culture. In R. G. Fox (Ed.), Recapturing anthropology: Working in the present (pp. 137–162). School of American Research Press.
Abu-Lughod, L. (2016). Veiled sentiments: Honor and poetry in a Bedouin society (30th anniversary edition). University of California Press.
Ahmed, S. (2014). The cultural politics of emotion. Routledge.
Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe half-way: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Duke University Press.
Becker, E. (2004). Hey, that’s me in that ethnography! In G. W. Noblit, S. Y. Flores, & E. G. Murillo Jr. (Eds.), Postcritical ethnography: Reinscribing critique (pp. 239–246). Hampton Press.
Behar, R. (1991). Death and memory: From Santa María del Monte to Miami Beach. Cultural Anthropology, 6(3), 346–384.
Behar, R. (2022). The vulnerable observer: Anthropology that breaks your heart (25th anniversary edition). Beacon Press.
Bell, D. (1980). Brown v. Board of Education and the interest convergence dilemma. Harvard Law Review, 93(3), 518–533.
Bell, D. (2004). Silent covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the unfulfilled hopes for racial reform. Oxford University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (2008). Political interventions: Social science and political action. Verso.
Braidotti, R. (2013). The posthuman. Polity.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge.
Butler, J. (1993). Critically queer. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 1(1), 17–32.
Clifford, J. (1986). Introduction: Partial truths. In J. Clifford & G. E. Marcus (Eds.), Writing culture: The poetics and politics of ethnography (pp. 1–26). University of California Press.
Collins, P. H. (1986). Learning from the outsider within: The sociological significance of black feminist thought. Social Problems, 33(6), 14–32.
Collins, P. H. (1990). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Routledge.
Crapanzano, V. (1986). Hermes’ dilemma: The masking of subversion in ethnographic description. In J. Clifford & G. E. Marcus (Eds.), Writing culture: The poetics and politics of ethnography (pp. 51–76). University of California Press.
Crenshaw, K. (1988). Race, reform, and retrenchment: Transformation, and legitimation in anti-discrimination law. Harvard Law Review, 101(7), 1331–1387.
Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press.
Erickson, K. A., D’Ardenne, C., Clark, N. M., Koppenhaver, D. A., & Noblit, G. W. (2022). Social and dialogic thinking and learning in special education: Radical insights from a postcritical ethnography in a special school. Routledge.
Foucault, M. (1988). Madness and civilization: A history of insanity in the age of reason. Vintage.
Foucault, M. (1990). History of sexuality: An introduction, Volume I. Vintage.
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. Basic.
Haraway, D. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575–599.
Jackson, A. Y. (2008). Power and pleasure in ethnographic “home-work:” producing a recognizable ethics. Qualitative Research, 8(1), 37–51.
Krog, A. (2000). Country of my skull: Guilt, sorrow, and the limits of forgiveness in the New South Africa. Three Rivers.
Lather, P. (1992). Post-critical pedagogies: A feminist reading. In C. Luke & J. Gore (Eds.), Feminisms and critical pedagogy (pp. 121–133). Routledge.
Lather, P. (2016). Top Ten+ List: (Re)Thinking ontology in (post)qualitative research. Cultural Studies ←→ Critical Methodologies, 16(2), 125–131.
Noblit, G. (1993). Power and caring. American Educational Research Journal, 30(1), 23–38.
Noblit, G. W. (1999). Introduction. Particularities: Collected essays on ethnography and education. Peter Lang.
Noblit, G. W. (2004). Storytelling as ethnographic representation. In G. W. Noblit, S. Y. Flores, & E. G. Murillo Jr. (Eds.), Postcritical ethnography: Reinscribing critique (pp. 307–317). Hampton Press.
Noblit, G. W., Flores, S. Y., & Murillo, E. G., Jr. (2004). Introduction. In G. W. Noblit, S. Y. Flores, & E. G. Murillo Jr. (Eds.), Postcritical ethnography: Reinscribing critique (pp. 1–52). Hampton Press.
Picketty, T. (2017). Capital in the 21st century. Belknap Press.
Pratt, M. L. (1986). Fieldwork in common places. In J. Clifford & G. E. Marcus (Eds.), Writing culture: The poetics and politics of ethnography (pp. 27–50). University of California Press.
Quantz, R. A. (1992). On critical ethnography (with some postmodern considerations). In M. D. LeCompte, W. L. Milroy, & J. Preissle (Eds.), The handbook of qualitative research in education (pp. 447–505). Academic.
Rosaldo, R. (1986). From the door of his tent: The fieldworker and the inquisitor. In J. Clifford & G. E. Marcus (Eds.), Writing culture: The poetics and politics of ethnography (pp. 77–97). University of California Press.
St. Pierre, E. A. (2013). The posts continue: Becoming. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 26(6), 646–657.
St. Pierre, E. A. (2014). A brief and personal history of post qualitative research: Toward “post inquiry”. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 30(2), 2–19.
Talburt, S. (2004). Time, space, and ethnography without proper subjects. In G. W. Noblit, S. Y. Flores, & E. G. Murillo Jr. (Eds.), Postcritical ethnography: Reinscribing critique (pp. 107–123). Hampton Press.
Thrift, N. (2008). Non-representational theory: Space, politics, affect. Routledge.
Vannini, P. (2015). Non-representational methodologies: Re-envisioning research. Routledge.
Wolcott, H. F. (2008). Ethnography: a way of seeing. 2nd edition. (First published 1999). AltaMira.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Anders, A.D., Noblit, G.W. (2024). Postcritical Ethnography. In: Anders, A.D., Noblit, G.W. (eds) Evolutions in Critical and Postcritical Ethnography. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-58827-3_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-58827-3_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-58826-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-58827-3
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)