TY - JOUR
AU - Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus
AB - Patrick Thaddeus Jackson 91 Can Ethnographic Techniques Tell Us Distinctive Things About World Politics? Patrick Thaddeus Jackson American University Iver Neumann’s paper on speech-writing practices in the Norwegian foreign min- istry, besides presenting a fascinating glimpse of a side of official political action that we scholars don’t often see, implicitly raises a broader methodological ques- tion: can ethnographic techniques tell us distinctive things about world politics? What is the benefit of pursuing an ethnographic approach to IR research? To begin with, we should distinguish between ethnographic methods and eth- nography as a form of interpretive methodology. Methods are techniques for the collection of data, while methodology deals with how epistemological and onto- logical considerations are incorporated into the research process (Schwartz-Shea and Yanow, 2002:459–460). ‘‘Ethnography’’ conventionally implies both a method and a methodology: the method of participant-observation, and the methodology of endeavoring to make sense of how others make sense of the world (Geertz 2000:56–58). The two are linked, of course. The methodological goal of abandoning attempts to account for the world ‘‘as it really is in itself’’ in favor of a focus on sense-making practices—a goal which stems from a philo- sophical rejection of both the mind-body duality 
TI - Can Ethnographic Techniques Tell Us Distinctive Things About World Politics?
JO - International Political Sociology
DO - 10.1111/j.1749-5687.2007.00035_5.x
DA - 2008-03-06
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/can-ethnographic-techniques-tell-us-distinctive-things-about-world-l7oCCbMLsu
SP - 91
EP - 93
VL - 2
IS - 1
DP - DeepDyve
ER -