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Ethnography and Psychoanalysis
Ethnography and Psychoanalysis

Author(s): Geoffrey Skoll
Subject(s): Cultural Essay, Political Essay, Societal Essay
Published by: Editura Universităţii »Alexandru Ioan Cuza« din Iaşi
Keywords: ethnography; psychoanalysis; fear of crime; fractals; semiotics; urban

Summary/Abstract: This methodological essay describes and advocates using certain psychoanalytic techniques for ethnography. It focuses on the self analysis of the ethnographer using evenly hovering attention, dream analysis, and free association. It presents an argument that using those techniques enhances the goal of ethnography as a human science and of social research. Fear of crime serves as a point of departure for the methodological argument. Finally, it links psychoanalytic ethnography to a fractal model of society and the self with reference to C. S. Peirce’s theory of semiotics as a link between the individual and society.

  • Issue Year: 2012
  • Issue No: 01
  • Page Range: 29-50
  • Page Count: 22
  • Language: English