Interrogating Ethnography: Why Evidence Matters

In this comprehensive review of urban ethnography, Steven Lubet encountered a field that relies heavily on anonymous sources, often as reported by a single investigator whose underlying data remain unseen. Upon digging into the details, he discovered too many ethnographic assertions that were dubious, exaggerated, tendentious, or just plain wrong. Employing the tools and techniques of a trial lawyer, Lubet uses original sources and contemporaneous documentation to explore the stories behind ethnographic narratives. Many turn out to be accurate, but others are revealed to be based on rumors, folklore, and unreliable hearsay. Interrogating Ethnography explains how qualitative social science would benefit from greater attention to the quality of evidence, and provides recommendations for bringing the field more closely in line with other fact-based disciplines such as law and journalism.

Table of Contents:
Preface Introduction: The Ethnographic Trial Chapter One: Testimony Chapter Two: Opinion and Documentation Chapter Three: Unreliability Chapter Four: Credulity Chapter Five: Selectivity Chapter Six: Rumors and Folklore Chapter Seven: Anonymity Chapter Eight: Criminality Conclusion: Toward Evidence-Based Ethnography

About the Author :
Steven Lubet is the Williams Memorial Professor of Law at Northwestern University. He is the author of fifteen books and over 120 articles on the history, ethics, and practice of law.

Review :
"This is a critically important book that takes aim at how ethnographers gather their information and make their arguments. Lubet's bold critique demands attention from all ethnographers, and those who read ethnography." --Shamus Khan, Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology, Columbia University "In Interrogating Ethnography, Lubet brings a detective's eye to the stories that ethnographers tell in order to offer timely and important interventions about the relevance-indeed urgency-for credibility, reliability, and objectivity in the narratives academics craft about their research subjects." --Michele Goodwin, Chancellor's Professor and Director at the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy, University of California, Irvine School of Law "Interrogating Ethnography reminds an important discipline that it seeks to learn and publish the truth. Lubet holds ethnography to the standards that he applies to his own research, and the results are bracing." --Anita Bernstein, Anita and Stuart Subotnick Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School "Despite the growth of ethnographic research as a respected methodology in the social sciences and increasingly in public policy, the standards for what constitutes findings of fact remain obscure and uncertain. Lubet has performed a vital service by describing how field researchers should think about the validity and credibility of the data that they gather. Interrogating Ethnography will become essential reading for anyone interested in reading or writing participant observation." --Gary Alan Fine, James E. Johnson Professor of Sociology, Northwestern University "This book is an essential critique of the most public-facing product sociology has to offer. This book really should be required in every sociology (and anthropology-I'm looking at you, too!) graduate methods class, and probably for undergrad methods classes, too. It's a fast, easy read, and lays bare the issues in an admirably clear way that earns it the Contexts' Seal of Approval." --Contexts