ABSTRACT
In Crafting Ethnographic Fieldwork, co-editors Amir B. Marvasti and Jaber F. Gubrium have outlined significant contours of the enterprise. This afterword elaborates on their discussion especially of analytic inspiration and methodological reflexivity. For illustration, the chapter draws upon the author’s fieldwork in an American courtroom and a study of American football players’ adjustments to life after playing in the National Football League. The examples underscore Marvasti and Gubrium’s counsel for ethnographers to be continually aware of challenges posed by distinctive field sites, the roles of ethnographic subjects in the field, and the fluidity of social worlds. The need for procedural tolerance is evident throughout. Neither the Introduction nor the book’s substantive chapters suggest a methodological “free-for-all.” Rather, they underscore the co-editors’ argument that ethnography’s craft is realized through practice, not recipes and strictures. It is a grounded endeavor guided by enduringly complex, situationally conditioned procedural and analytic concerns.
