Getting Into the Field
Getting Into the Field
New Approaches to Research Methods
This chapter proposes a new approach to the ethnography of contested illnesses that is multisited and focused on policy: policy ethnography. Policy ethnography employs field analysis as one analytical tool. It explores the spaces and boundaries between science, policy, and civil society. Specifically, policy ethnography combines traditional interviews, content analysis, and participant observation with historical analysis of movement trajectories, evaluation of current policy strategies, assessment of political contexts and opportunities, and the evaluation and use of scientific evidence. Most important, policy ethnography assumes a policy goal. In some cases, those carrying out policy ethnography are themselves actors in the policy realm.
Keywords: policy ethnography, field analysis, contested illnesses, policy strategies, scientific evidence, policy realm
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