ABSTRACT
Ethnography is people-centered, as contrasted with studies focusing on theoretical approaches and models. As Mark Swartz has pointed out, the scope of the field under study changes as “additional actors enter into the processes or as former participants withdraw and as they bring new types of activities and/or abandon old types.” Almost all of the forty-seven, looking back on their years in local politics, are glad that they have at least given politics a fling or at most made it a focal part of their lives. Most of the forty-seven see minor changes in their attitudes and beliefs due to local political activity. Curiosity, idealism and pragmatism led the forty-seven into their part-time political venture. The forty-seven were socialized by their families or resocialized by world and national events to take some responsibility for the common good. The Adlai Stevenson presidential campaigns of 1952 and 1956 galvanized both liberals and radicals among the forty-seven.
