Policy Press

Doing Human Service Ethnography

Edited by Katarina Jacobsson and Jaber Gubrium

Published

Jul 22, 2021

Page count

242 pages

ISBN

978-1447355793

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Policy Press

Published

Jul 22, 2021

Page count

242 pages

ISBN

978-1447355809

Dimensions

Imprint

Policy Press
Doing Human Service Ethnography
Download via OAPEN

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Human service work is performed in many places – hospitals, shelters, households, prisons, schools, clinics – and is characterised by a complex mixture of organising principles, relations and rules. Using ethnographic methods, researchers can investigate these site-specific complexities, providing multi-dimensional and compelling analyses.

Bringing together both theoretical and practical material, this book shows researchers how ethnography can be carried out within human service settings. It provides an invaluable guide on how to apply ethnographic creativeness and offers a more humanistic and context-sensitive approach in the field of health and social care to generating valid knowledge about today’s service work.

“In this time of pandemics and apparently faceless global corporations, human service work is fundamentally important to all our lives. In this fascinating volume, two leading experts in the field bring together an array of insightful accounts of how service encounters work in the field. An essential book for anybody wanting to engage with the ethnographic realities of practitioner-client interaction.” David Silverman, Goldsmiths, University of London

"Thorough, detailed, theoretically sophisticated and timely, with an impressive range. An essential resource for researchers and practitioners at all career levels concerned with lived experience and organisational practice in human services." Dana Rosenfeld, University of Westminster

“A timely book that explores an under-covered realm of security cooperation between China and EU as part of their complex and multifaceted relationship and engagements. An inspiring book with insightful analyses!” Li Xing, Aalborg University

Katarina Jacobsson is Professor of Social Work at Lund University in Sweden.

Jaber F. Gubrium is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Missouri in the US.

Part One: Capturing Professional Relevance

Shadowing Care Workers When They’re “Doing Nothing” ~ Doris Lydahl

Two Worlds of Professional Relevance in a Small Village ~ Christal Avendal

Capturing the Organization of Emotions in Child Welfare Decision-Making ~ Tea Torbenfeldt Bengtsson

Part Two: Grasping Empirical Complexity

Sensitizing Concepts in Studies of Homelessness and Disability ~ Nanna Mik-Meyer

Grasping the Social Life of Documents in Human Service Practice ~ Emilie Morwenna Whitaker

Debating Dementia Care Logics ~ Cintia Engel, Janaina Aredes & Annette Leibing

Part Three: Challenges Of Multi-Sitedness

Social Worlds of Person-Centered, Multi-Sited Ethnography ~ Aleksandra Bartoszko

“Facting” in a Case of Concealed Pregnancy ~ Lucy Sheehan

Ethnographic Challenges of Fragmented Human Services ~ Tarja Pösö

PART Four: Noticings From Ethnographic Distance

Ethnographic Discovery after Fieldwork on Troubled Youth ~ Malin Ǻkerström & David Wästerfors

Looking Beyond the Police-as-Control Narrative ~ David Sausdal

Embracing Lessons from Ethnography in Non-Western Prison ~ Andrew M. Jefferson