From Field to Text is a working group of early career scholars whose research and writing is rooted in the ethnographic method. The intellectual unity of the group is grounded in a shared belief that long-term participant observation fieldwork provides unique and valuable insights into the social world.

The group meets regularly to discuss works-in-progress, focusing on a set of issues related to ethnographic field methods, and the special claims it allows its practitioners to make about social experiences, social practices, and social relations. The principal goal of the meetings is a rigorous examination of the process of transforming field notes into rich analytical accounts – including writing with an ethnographic voice; generalizing claims; integrating embodied and non-verbalized aspects of interaction.

Members either are writing a manuscript or collecting ethnographic data. For more information please contact Erin O’Connor.