Writing Ethnographically

Narrative (a scene with people and movement), description/ethnographic detail (texture, objects, people's own words), and analysis/theory (why it matters).

A drafting discipline: scene → detail → interpretation → back to scene.

A twitch and a conspiratorial wink look identical, but are different social acts — you must describe the twitch precisely enough that the reader sees the wink, then name it.

Pure storytelling with no argument, or theory dumped on top of thin data.

Reread all fieldnotes and write a one-line label in the margin for each chunk; the three to six recurring labels become candidate themes.

You can state it in a single sentence with a verb of argument; if it won't fit in one sentence, it's only a topic.

A moment from your notes rendered in 100–200 words that speaks directly to your claim; two or three anchor the essay's analytic sections.

Opening scene (no thesis yet) → the puzzle → brief method/positionality paragraph → 2–3 analytic sections each anchored by a scene → closing that returns to the opening and widens slightly.

Anthropology since the 1980s rejects the invisible omniscient observer; keep the 'I' instrumental — appear when your presence shaped the data, not to narrate feelings at length.

Timeless phrasing like 'The Nuer herd cattle' freezes people outside of history; use past tense for what you observed, e.g. 'In March 2024, the vendors rotated stalls weekly.'

States who you were in the setting (student, stranger, regular, cousin) and what that access opened and closed.

Use pseudonyms, blur identifying details, note this in a footnote, and quote generously and accurately without making people sound more eloquent or more quaint.