Multi-sited Ethnography

Classical ethnography not only constructs its research object as a locally bounded and culturally homogenous unity, but also contextualizes and interprets this unity in a macrosociological framework like that of the capitalist world system. In contrast to this, Marcus (1995) subsumes those procedures under the heading of multi-sited ethnography, in which research objects are constructed multidimensionally, thereby providing for their respective unique dynamics.

Ethnography moves from its conventional single-site location, contextualized by macro-constructions of a larger social order, such as the capitalist world system, to multiple sites of observation and participation that cross-cut dichotomies such as the ‘local’ and the ‘global,’ the ‘life world’ and the ‘system.’ (Marcus 1995, 95)

The concept of multi-sited ethnography takes into consideration that cultural formations are not territorially fixed and do not develop in isolation from each other, but rather they are expressions of complex networks and global mobility. Multi-sited ethnography examines the shifting of cultural meanings, objects and identities on the move, and in so doing becomes itself a mobile methodology that follows people, things, symbols, narratives, biographies and/or conflicts; thus constructing its research object in the movement between the different sites.