The “so what?” in ethnographic writing: article report, data analysis, and comments

 by Yunpeng (Dery) Du

In this session, I’d like to share a section of a paper I’m doodling. It is an ethnographic report about one of my participants, in which I trace her professional trajectory from doing a BA in the UK, teaching English in China for three years, coming to London for an MA TESOL degree, and went back to China after graduation. The section is about understanding the ambivalences she faced when resisting going back to China but having no alternative choices. Focused on this section, I hope to generate insights and reflections about how to find meaning in ethnographic writing, in particular about making the writing significant in itself in order to avoid questions like “Why are you telling me all these details? You can use two sentences to summarize!”.

The session is planned to have three parts. In the first part, I will introduce background information and the previous parts of the paper. In the second, it would be good for attendees to go into separate groups to have a discussion based on a few questions I propose and anything else that turns to be relevant. In the end, we go back together and wrap up with further discussions and questions for Dery to take home.