The course aims at introducing students to ethnographic research. It will start by reviewing and discussing the classical definitions of ethnography, its relations with anthropological research, the importance of participating observation. We will bring to light the historical ans social contexts that shaped ethnography at its beginning, and we will discuss tra transformations that ethnography has gone through in order to face contemporary postcolonial societies.
The course will the proceed analyzing the practices that constitute field-research today, reviewing the ethnographer's techniques ant the tactics, showing their links with the politics of representation.
A short list of monographs reporting ethnographic research on marginality and the social consequences of neoliberal policies will be examined, highlighting the methodological and ethical problems raised .