ethnographic writing

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

It locates cultural interpretations in many sorts of reciprocal contexts, and it obliges writers to find diverse ways of rendering negotiated realities as multisubjective, power-laden, and incongruent. In this view, 'culture' is always relational, an inscription of communicative processes that exist, historically, between subjects in relations of power (Dwyer 1977, Tedlock 1979). (15)

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

Ethnographic writing is determined in at least six ways: (1) contextually (it draws from and creates meaningful social milieux)... (2) rhetorically (it uses and is used by expressive conventions)... (3) institutionally (one writes within, and against, specific traditions, disciplines, audiences)... (4) generically (an ethnography is usually distinguishable from a novel or a travel account)... (5) politically (the authority to represent cultural realities is unequally shared and at times contested)... (6) historically (all the above conventions and constraints are changing).

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

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

Ethnographic writing is determined in at least six ways: (1) contextually (it draws from and creates meaningful social milieux)... (2) rhetorically (it uses and is used by expressive conventions)... (3) institutionally (one writes within, and against, specific traditions, disciplines, audiences)... (4) generically (an ethnography is usually distinguishable from a novel or a travel account)... (5) politically (the authority to represent cultural realities is unequally shared and at times contested)... (6) historically (all the above conventions and constraints are changing). These determinations govern the inscription of coherent ethnographic fictions. (6)

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

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

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

ethnographic writing, n.All

ethnographic writing