Quick Ethnography

Quick Ethnography (QE) is an easy-to-read guide to the rapid collection of high quality ethnographic data for use in research, policy analysis, and decision-making. It addresses the needs of social scientists grappling with complex cultural social interactions and cultural change occurring in communities around the globe by offering a comprehensive, integrated multi-method approach that will increase research productivity. Handwerker provides step-by-step procedures for producing lots of data very quickly, outlining how ethnographers must control field preparation, data collection, and methods of data analysis. The rigorous QE approach allows greater precision and subtlety of ethnographic description and explanation that is not always possible in applied contract work (known as Rapid Assessment Procedures). The author, an anthropologist who has been teaching and consulting on fieldwork methods for over 25 years, includes extensive examples of research design and management that are valuable for the novice as well as for experienced researchers in all social science disciplines. Visit the author's web site.

Quick Ethnography is full of valuable advice and is an efficient method for developing, executing, and analyzing ethnographic field projects. Handwerker draws on his extensive expertise to demonstrate how ethnographers can avoid some of the inefficiencies and pitfalls that have hampered their work. . . . This methods relies on both qualitative and quantitative methods to gather data and employs an impressively broad range of numerical and statistical techniques. . . . He begins by laying down a set of ground rules that are crucial, obvious, and often ignored. Prior to beginning field research ethnographers should create a clear vision of where they want to go, how to get there, and how to avoid getting lost. . . . [His] method is complex, thorough, and detailed.

W. Penn Handwerker is professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of Connecticut. He is known for his research in the Caribbean and the Arctic on health, gender, subsistence, and other important research areas.