This training session is delivered by Dr Elizabeth Ann Rahman for the GUDTP
Ethnography is often described in terms of immersion or participation. Yet its distinctive contribution lies in how lived encounters are rendered analytically: how attention becomes inscription, how inscription becomes category, and how categories support particular forms of claim-making. This workshop examines ethnography as an analytic practice, focusing on how fieldnotes are produced, how interpretations stabilise, and how methodological decisions shape what counts as evidence.
The day treats participant observation as situated and partial; coding as a classificatory intervention that organises complexity; and diffractive reading as a relational approach that attends to tension, scale, and interference rather than thematic closure. By contrasting these analytic logics in practice, the workshop clarifies what each makes possible and what each obscures.
Participants will generate fieldnotes within the institutional setting of the Pitt Rivers Museum and undertake collaborative co-analysis. Throughout, the emphasis is on analytic judgement, reflexive positioning, and the consequences of methodological choice.
The training will be offered on Thursday 28 May 2026, 10:00–16:00
Spaces are limited so we cannot guarantee a place at the point of registration. Places will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, and once places are full, we will maintain a waiting list.
Those allocated a place will be informed by e-mail
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Learning Outcomes
By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:
- Distinguish between observation, description, and analytic claim
- Apply and compare classificatory (coding) and relational analytic approaches.
- Identify how epistemic commitments shape analytic decisions and research claims.
- Reflect on how collaborative and participatory approaches redistribute analytic authority.
- Refine a specific analytic or methodological component of their own research design.
Essential readings
- Nemirovsky, R., & Duprez, D. (2023). Tessellation, shamanism, and being alive to things. Oxford Review of Education, 49(4), 496–518. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2023.2225851
- Lave, J., & Gomes, A. M. R. (2019). Learning and everyday life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 1: “Learning as Social Practice.”
- Mazzei, L. A. (2014). “Beyond an easy sense: A diffractive analysis.” Qualitative Inquiry, 20(6), 742–746. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800414530257
Additional Readings
- Ingold, T. (2017). Anthropology and/as education. London: Routledge. Chapter 2: “On Attention.”
- Fassin, D. (2013). Ethnography as critical practice. Public Culture, 25(3), 621–627. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-2144628
- Strathern, M. (1999). “The ethnographic effect.” In Property, substance and effect (pp. 6–28). London: Athlone Press.
Topics Covered
Ethnography as Analytic Practice
We begin by situating ethnography within anthropological debates about attention, practice, and knowledge production. The session clarifies how fieldnotes are already analytic, how scale enters early, and how observation is shaped by position. Instructions for the museum exercise are introduced here.
Participant Observation: Position and Practice
This session revisits participant observation as lived practice rather than method slogan. We consider proximity, authority, and partiality, and discuss the limits of immersion in institutional settings. Participants reflect on analogous tensions in their own research contexts.
From Fieldnotes to Coding
We examine how ethnographers move from description to classification. A short extract is analysed to demonstrate segmentation, category formation, and thematic stabilisation. Participants undertake a structured coding exercise to expose divergence and analytic reduction.
Coding and Its Limits
This discussion considers what coding does and what it obscures. We ask when reduction is necessary, when it risks flattening relational complexity, and how analytic categories align with epistemic assumptions.
Institutional Observation: Pitt Rivers
Participants conduct a bounded observational exercise focusing on classification, display, and spatial organisation within the museum. The aim is to produce a short descriptive fieldnote attentive to material and institutional ordering.
Co-Analysis: Coding and Diffractive Reading
Using participant-generated fieldnotes, groups undertake rapid coding followed by relational cross-reading. The contrast demonstrates how classificatory and relational analytic logics generate different forms of understanding.
Methodological Judgement
In this closing session, participants reflect on how analytic decisions intersect with questions of collaboration and authority. We examine when co-analysis is appropriate, how participatory approaches alter research design, and what constraints (ethical, institutional, epistemic) shape co-production in practice. Participants identify one concrete adjustment they might make to incorporate collaborative or participatory elements in their own work.
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