ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the ethnographic approach rooted in the American pragmatist tradition in sociology as it developed at the University of Chicago around the turn of the twentieth century and found expression in symbolic interactionism. It begins by considering briefly the pragmatist foundations of symbolic interactionism in the work of John Dewey, Charles Horton Cooley and George Herbert Mead. The chapter demonstrates the enduring relevance and influence of the pragmatist tradition by discussing some of the earliest ethnographies as well as more recent work informed by a symbolic interactionist perspective. The chapter turns to a discussion of the empirical practices connected to doing ethnographies informed by a symbolic interactionist perspective. It provides an overview of the pragmatist tradition in sociology as it has taken shape in symbolic interactionism and the ethnographies it has generated. Ethnographers can make conceptual comparisons across substantive contexts to produce more formal theory.
