“The key issues of race and poverty facing the nation are adumbrated in those neighborhoods,” says Anderson. “In this way, ethnography becomes an indispensable tool for public understanding of urban life and culture,” says Anderson. Through the ethnographic method, explains Anderson, you become not only an observer but something of a communication link to people in the larger society, who have lots of opinions but no real knowledge of the state of affairs of so many of their fellow citizens. The ethnographer listens to what people say and watches what they do, and then tries to make sense of it all.”Īnderson adds: “Essentially, the ethnographer’s task is to paint a cultural picture, or to place these lives on a canvas.” That canvas, explains Anderson, is the book or the article that results from these experiences and observations of the neighborhoods he studies.
“Through such ‘up close’ observation, the ethnographer can gain a sense of how his or her subjects go about meeting the exigencies of everyday life, how they solve their everyday problems, and through this process, develop a local knowledge. “To understand this culture, the ethnographer engages in field work, immersing himself or herself in a particular community - walking, talking, eating, and sometimes drinking with the people,” says Anderson. When Anderson engages in the ethnographic field work that has shaped his life’s work - and for which he was recently honored with the prestigious W.E.B DuBois Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award from the American Sociological Association - the Yale social scientist stresses that it is imperative to apprehend, comprehend, and to render the local culture of the people who live within the city, to accurately portray their lives. When Yale’s newest Sterling Professor, sociologist Elijah Anderson, speaks to the students in his urban ethnography courses, he emphasizes that it’s the questions - and not just the answers - that lead to intellectually invigorating conversations.
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