Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

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Ethnography
(769 words)

The term “ethnography” (from the Greek éthnos, “people”; gráphein, “to write”) denotes the description of a certain, primarily foreign culture. In a scholarly context, ethnography is a subdiscipline of ethnology, providing the empirical data for ethnological interpretation. The basis for scholarly descriptions of a culture is information obtained in stationary field research, primarily through interviews and participatory observation [2].

The roots of ethnography go back to Antiquity. The father of the discipline was the Greek historian Herodotus. O…

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Gareis, Iris, “Ethnography”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 19 March 2024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_SIM_018977>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20180126



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