University of Sussex / National Centre for Research Methods

It is now 10 years since Marcus published his cornerstone text arguing for the adoption of multi-sited approaches in ethnography, which contrast with earlier practices in which anthropologists and others conducting ethnography endeavored to find a single 'site'. This offered a label, rationale and coherence to research practices that many anthropologist had already been developing to address their subject which crosses cultural and political worlds. Yet while multi-sited approaches are easy to imagine, they are hard to practice well. Many doctoral students have been attracted to the approaches as they offer interesting ways to engage with current policy and social questions linked to globalisation. They often receive funding because they are interesting and innovative. Yet the practical and funding difficulties, the need to acquire the confidence of informants in many different social worlds, and the ethical dilemmas that such research leads to present huge challenges. Has the ability to work on interesting questions come at the expense of research quality and validity? How has this shift altered research practice in less well resourced contexts (e.g. in Africa and South Asia). A major concern will be how techniques used more usually within comparative research can complement ethnographic research and help to resolve some of these issues, and vice versa how can ethnographic techniques complement large scale comparative research, especially in contexts where survey data is problematic. Other disciplines (political science, media studies, cultural studies) have increasingly turned to 'ethnographic' approaches, premised on those that have been developed in anthropology. How has the shift to multi-sited ethnographic approaches been conducted and received in these disciplines? What effect has this methodological shift had on the distinctiveness of social anthropology, and on its interdisciplinary engagement.