ABSTRACT
Given that the burgeoning fi eld of Heritage Studies does not yet offer a set of established methodologies to choose from, researchers are challenged, but also free, to employ novel lines of enquiry towards our aim of a more complex and satisfying understanding of heritage. I therefore imposed a distinct course upon my doctoral study of maritime heritage in Bermuda, and, by way of this experience, gleaned insight into the pursuit of heritage as an ethnographic object of study. This chapter draws on my research journey in order to explicate this method, which I suggest be termed ‘heritage ethnography’. The methodological refl ection that follows is intended to be purposive but not prescriptive, suggesting approaches and skills distinct to heritage ethnography without assigning it a restrictive and counterproductive paradigm. I aim to show that heritage ethnography is not a mechanistic or replicable method but a specialised research attitude and sensibility – indeed, a kind of craft.
