What is an ethnography? - A systematic analytical description of a culture, subculture, community, or institution, and the practices and activities of that group of people, produced by a participant-observer. An ethnology is a comparative study of two or more cultures, subcultures, etc.

Where do I find one? - Ethnographies can be short (article length, published in journals or as chapters/essays in books) or long (books). So, look in collections of anthropological books and articles to find ethnographies.

But how do I find a book or article that is an ethnography? - Unfortunately, ethnographies are not always tagged in a consistent way, but there are strategies to help limit your searches to find ethnographies:

Books - In OneSearch, use the Advanced Search option (once you are in OneSearch, there is a link toward the upper right to go to "Advanced Search") and:

• In the first line, enter keyword search terms for the group, institution, or place you are interested in
• In the second line, switch "Any field" to "Subject," and add one of the following terms or phrases:
  • ethnology    (note: 'ethnology' is used to tag both ethnographies and ethnologies)
  • social life and customs   (many but not all books with this tag are ethnographies)
  • social conditions   (many but not all books with this tag are ethnographies)
  • case studies    (many but not all books with this tag are ethnographies)
• To find just books, rather than search "Everything" in OneSearch, select to search "Wesleyan Books" or "CTW Books"

Articles, essays, books, etc. - In OneSearch or a database such as AnthroSource, enter keyword search terms for the group, institution, or place you are interested in, and add keyword search terms such as

• ethnograph*   (truncating the term with an asterisk will find 'ethnography', 'ethnographies', and 'ethnographic')
• keywords describing the aspect of the culture you are interested in. For any matches, you will need to examine the contents to determine whether it is an ethnography.

Use bibliographies - Find a book or article on the group you are interested in and look in its bibliography to see if any ethnographic studies of the group are cited.