ethnographic writing, n.All

Ethnographic writing is rhetorically determined: It uses and is used by expressive conventions.

Ethnographic writing is historically determined: All the above conventions and constraints are changing.

Ethnographic writing is politically determined: The authority to represent cultural realities is unequally shared and at times contested.

Ethnographic writing is generically determined: An ethnography is usually distinguishable from a novel or a travel account.

Ethnographic writing is contextually determined: It draws from and creates meaningful social milieux.

Ethnographic writing is best when it obliges writers to find diverse ways of rendering negotiated realities as multisubjective, power-laden, and incongruent.

Ethnographic writing is institutionally determined: One writes within, and against, specific traditions, disciplines, audiences.