Paul Willis 
The Ethnographic Imagination [PDF ebook] 

In this book Paul Willis, a renowned sociologist and ethnographer,
aims to renew and develop the ethnographic craft across the
disciplines. Drawing from numerous examples of his own past and
current work, he shows that ethnographic practice and the
ethnographic imagination are vital to understanding the creativity
and irreducibility of experience in all aspects of social and
cultural practice.
Willis argues that ethnography plays a vital role in
constituting ‘sensuousness’ in textual, methodological, and
substantive ways, but it can do this only through the deployment of
an associated theoretical imagination which cannot be found simply
there in the field. He presents a bold and incisive
ethnographically oriented view of the world, emphasizing the need
for a deep-running social but also aesthetic sensibility. In doing
so he brings new insights to the understanding of human action and
its dialectical relation to social and symbolic structures. He
makes original contributions to the understanding of the
contemporary human uses of objects, artefacts and communicative
forms, presenting a new analysis of commodity fetishism as central
to consumption and to the wider social relations of contemporary
societies. He also utilizes his perspective to further the
understanding of the contemporary crisis in masculinity and to cast
new light on various lived everyday cultures – at school, on the
dole, on the street, in the Mall, in front of TV, in the dance
club.
This book will be essential reading for all those involved in
planning or contemplating ethnographic fieldwork and for those
interested in the contributions it can make to the social sciences
and humanities.

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