Humanism, Social Justice, and the Art of Ethnography

The art of ethnography engages the politics of interpretation and explanation by its endeavor to inform, sensitize, problematize, and persuade. It contributes to a sociology that Zygmunt Bauman locates within the twin currents of history and poetry in its quest to expose hidden human possibilities. As a method, ethnography requires the immersion of one’s body and mind in the social contexts, hierarchies, and lifeworlds of others to deepen our understandings of social life and human exigency. In this paper, I map out the ways in which ethnography contributes to humanism and social justice. Specifically, I will show how ethnography can deepen our understanding of the human condition, expose the organization and mechanisms of power, invite empathetic dialogue through sociological storytelling, and advance a critical emancipatory approach to research grounded in lived experience. To do so, I will highlight four of its most important contributions: (1) connecting larger social forces to individual lives; (2) mapping the institutional organization and reproduction of power; (3) humanizing stigmatized populations; and (4) elucidating the elasticity of theory.