Abstract
Following Gananath Obeyesekere, himself following Max Weber, this essay argues that ethnographers do not really study social worlds or even social groups. Instead, they move back and forth between abstract models and life histories: according to Obeyesekere, “… my thoughts are conditioned by the data that I deal with, as the data themselves are conditioned by my abstractions.” (Obeyesekere, 1990, p. 3) Sometimes, ethnographers present abstract information. But at other times, when gathering life histories of their informants, ethnographers are immersed in the empirical details of “who,” “what,” “why”, and “when.” In this life historical phase, the ethnographer studies what can be, in a sense, photographed; ethnography, then, has a narrative as events are structured through time. Also, when gathering life histories, ethnographers are very aware of motivational issues: why did someone choose this course of action, not another? Life historical research is then, by its character, akin to psychoanalytic investigation.
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© 2014 Philip Manning
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Manning, P. (2014). The Ethnographic Spiral: Reflections on the Intersection of Life History and Ideal-Typical Analysis. In: Chancer, L., Andrews, J. (eds) The Unhappy Divorce of Sociology and Psychoanalysis. Studies in the Psychosocial. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137304582_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137304582_11
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