The Ethnographic Interview

A must-read classic for anyone academic ethnographers to market researchers involved with data collection from individual human beings. The Ethnographic Interview is a practical, self-teaching handbook that guides readers step-by-step through interview techniques commonly used to research ethnography and culture. The text also shows how to analyze collected data and how to write an ethnography. Appendices include research questions and writing tasks.

James P. Spradley (1933-1982), a professor of anthropology at Macalester College, wrote or edited twenty books on ethnography and qualitative research in twelve years, including The Cultural Experience: Ethnography in Complex Society (with McCurdy; 2/E with Shandy), The Ethnographic Interview, Participant Observation, The Cocktail Waitress: Woman's Work in a Man's World (with Mann), and You Owe Yourself a Drunk: An Ethnography of Urban Nomads, all available from Waveland Press. He was among the first cultural anthropologists to study modern U.S. life and to apply distinctly anthropological concepts and methods to address real-world problems like occupational stress, deafness, and homelessness.