ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 begins with a discussion of how the project moved from an interview project to being an ethnography. Central to that transformation was our decision to begin brewing. Brewing beer brought us into the sphere of craft brewers, even though we did not become professional brewers. The chapter moves to a discussion of how to define craft beer as a community and discusses the central notion of boundary. Drawing on ideas of the symbolic construction of community, as well as the rhizome, the chapter talks about the ways the craft beer community is both a collection of small local communities, as well as a larger more national or even international community. The chapter then positions the authors as coming from an anthropological perspective on ethnography, defined as a relationship to the other and driven by “theoretical practice.” This approach is contrasted with a more positivist social science. The chapter then goes on to discuss the four main theoretical perspectives that frame our ethnographic practice. The practice is shaped by theories of political economy and the transformation of urban spaces. The role of media in the transformation of processes of production and consumption toward what is sometimes called prosumption. The ways in which craft brewing is socially reproduced through communities of practice. And then finally theoretical ideas about value and value creation from an anthropological perspective. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the limitations of the study.
