Publisher's Synopsis
Messy Ethnography takes this quotation seriously. Chapters 1 to 3 pursue a critique of traditional methods of qualitative research and ethnographic writing, not simply pointing out the many flaws, as has been done many times already, but presenting constructive alternatives where needed. The result is a clear eyed way forward. Chapters 4 to 15 put the lessons from the theoretical first chapters to the test using English culture as a case study. It asks the most obvious questions: Does Englishness exist? If so, where does it exist? What does it look like? etc. etc. The answers are found in a moderately holistic approach that incorporates data from physical anthropology, history and archeology, linguistics and folklore as well as cultural studies. Considerable emphasis is given to how the Georgian and Victorian eras laid down so much of what is considered Englishness today. The book is somewhat autoethnographic, somewhat reflexive, somewhat emic, and somewhat etic (given that I was not born in England, but my mother was English, and I lived there for 9 years - and return regularly because I have family and close friends living there). I am not an insider, not an outsider.
