User:JennyRosen/Feuer, Avital (2008) Who does this language belong to? Personal narratives of language claim and identity/ethnographic approach

This comment is more of a reflection and question based on the seminar we had with Ann-Carita Evaldsson in February. When reading Feuer's book I noticed that she called her approach ethnographic, but based on the discussions at the seminar I was still left wondering: what is it really that characterizes an ethnographic study? The central criterion lifted at the seminar was time; being in the field for a longer period of time. Feuer writes that the core of her field work took three months to complete, and that prior to participant observations and interviews she had made a few visits in the classroom a few months earlier. My initial reaction was that the time allotted for field work seemed a bit short if the study was to be called ethnographic. Time and other criteria for ethnographic studies are certainly something I'd like to discuss more in the seminars on our other course. /Annaliina