ARCHIVES AND SECONDARY DATA

In this chapter, readers learn about the ways in which ethnographers can draw on archives and secondary data in addition to primary data collected through the core methods of participant-observation and interviews/conversations. Ethnographers can collect and analyze cultural artifacts as instantiations of culture and society that already exist and reflect interesting or important dimensions related to the project that might not otherwise be easily accessible. Likewise, archival materials of various sorts allow ethnographic researchers to expand the scope of their research and more fully contextualize their findings in relation to historical events and larger social dynamics.