The Relevance of Ethnography Today

Continuing the textual turn in ethnography that George E. Marcus initiated with his colleague and friend James Clifford, this essay opens up new vistas in the conduct of fieldwork and the role of collaboration in cultural production. Marcus finds inspiration in the recent innovations in participatory practices in contemporary art and the principles of co-design in architecture. His focus then turns back to his own discipline to interrogate the role that scholars play in the production of what he calls 'mini-publics'.