Creative Analytical Practice (CAP) Ethnography

From the 1980s onward, influenced by POSTMODERNISM, feminism, and POSTSTRUCTURALISM, contemporary ETHNOGRAPHERS have challenged standard social science writing as ethically, philosophically, and scientifically problematic. Recognizing that the boundaries between “fact” and “fiction,” “subjective and objective,” and “author and subject” are blurred, these contemporary ethnographers are writing social science in new ways. At first, this work was referred to as experimental ethnography or alternative ethnography. More recently, to underscore the processes by which the writing is accomplished and to establish the legitimacy of these ethnographies in their own right, they are increasingly known as creative analytical practice or CAP ethnography.

CAP ethnography is both “scientific”—in the sense of being true to a world known through empirical work and study—and “literary”—in the sense of expressing what one has learned through evocative writing techniques and forms. Although CAP ethnographers belong to a number of different disciplines, they tend to share some research/writing practices in common. These include using theories that challenge the grounds of disciplinary authority; writing on topics of social and personal importance; privileging nonhierarchical, collaborative, and/or multivocal writing; favoring selfreflexivity; positioning oneself in multiple, often competing discourses; and the signature practice, writing evocatively, for different audiences in a variety of formats.

The varieties of CAP ethnography are many (cf. Richardson 1997). They include AUTOETHNOGRAPHY (cf. Ellis, 2003), FICTION, poetic representation, performance texts, ethnographic drama, story writing, reader's theater, aphorisms, conversations, epistles, mixed media, and layered accounts, as well as hypertexts, museum exhibits, photography, paintings, dance, and other forms of artistic representation. For example, Laurel Richardson created a narrative poem from an open-ended interview with “Louisa May,” an unwed mother (see Richardson, 1997). Carolyn Ellis (2003) invented a fictional graduate seminar in which characters, based on composites of actual students, engage in dialogue about autoethnography.