This GCRO Occasional Paper presents an ethnographic account of a decade-long journey in city economic data collation. The paper recounts the collaborations of the National Treasury’s Cities Support Programme (CSP) with Statistics South Africa, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) and the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), to collate anonymised and geocoded data that would enable an alternative mapping of the space economies of South African cities. Despite many practical and governance constraints, the collaborations ultimately bore fruit in the establishment of a secure administrative data centre at the National Treasury. This in turn led to the milestone publication of the 2021 City Spatial Economic Data Reports. This ethnographic account concludes by reflecting on possibilities for further improving the integrity of this vital city spatial economic data resource, and to enhance its use in credible, evidence-based urban analysis.

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence Drawing on the study of different cities in the Global South, this book explores how data have become a generative force in shaping what cities are, how they are governed and inhabited, especially during times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

New York's urban neighborhoods are full of young would-be emcees who aspire to "keep it real" and restaurants like Sylvia's famous soul food eatery that offer a taste of "authentic" black culture. In these and other venues, authenticity is considered the best way to distinguish the real from the phony, the genuine from the fake. But in Real Black, John L. Jackson Jr. proposes a new model for thinking about these issues--racial sincerity. Jackson argues that authenticity caricatures identity as something imposed on people, imprisoning them within stereotypes--turning them into racial objects and inanimate things, instead of living, breathing human beings. Contending that such assumptions deny people agency--not to mention humanity--in their search for identity, Jackson counterposes sincerity, an internal and more productive analytical model for thinking about race. Moving in and around Harlem and Brooklyn, Jackson offers a kaleidoscope of subjects and stories that directly and indirectly address how race is negotiated in today's world--including tales of name-changing hip-hop emcees, book-vending numerologists, urban conspiracy theorists, corrupt police officers, mixed-race neo-Nazis, and high-school gospel choirs forbidden to catch the Holy Ghost. Enlisting "Anthroman," his cape-crusading critical alter ego, Jackson records and retells these interconnected sagas in virtuosic detail and, in the process, shows us how race is defined and debated, imposed and confounded every single day.

Studies of human development have taken an ethnographic turn in the 1990s. In this volume, leading anthropologists, psychologists, and sociologists discuss how qualitative methodologies have strengthened our understanding of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral development, and of the difficulties of growing up in contemporary society. Part 1, informed by a post-positivist philosophy of science, argues for the validity of ethnographic knowledge. Part 2 examines a range of qualitative methods, from participant observation to the hermeneutic elaboration of texts. In Part 3, ethnographic methods are applied to issues of human development across the life span and to social problems including poverty, racial and ethnic marginality, and crime. Restoring ethnographic methods to a central place in social inquiry, these twenty-two lively essays will interest everyone concerned with the epistemological problems of context, meaning, and subjectivity in the behavioral sciences.

First Published in 2013. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Full of practical 'how to' tips for applying theoretical methods - 'doing ethnography' - this book also provides anecdotal evidence and advice for new and experienced researchers on how to engage with their own participation in the field - 'being ethnographic'. The book clearly sets out the important definitions, methods and applications of field research whilst reinforcing the infinite variability of the human subject and addressing the challenges presented by ethnographers' own passions, intellectual interests, biases and ideologies. Classic and personal real-world case studies are used by the author to introduce new researchers to the reality of applying ethnographic theory and practice in the field. Topics include: - Talking to People: negotiations, conversations & interviews - Being with People: participation - Looking at People: observations & images - Description: writing 'down' field notes - Analysis to Interpretation: writing 'out' data - Interpretation to Story: writing 'up' ethnography Clear, engaging and original this book provides invaluable advice as well as practical tools and study aids for those engaged in ethnographic research.

We are in a bind," writes Evelyn M. Perry. While conventional wisdom asserts that residential racial and economic integration holds great promise for reducing inequality in the United States, Americans are demonstrably not very good at living with difference. Perry's analysis of the multiethnic, mixed-income Milwaukee community of Riverwest, where residents maintain relative stability without insisting on conformity, advances our understanding of why and how neighborhoods matter. In response to the myriad urban quantitative assessments, Perry examines the impacts of neighborhood diversity using more than three years of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews. Her in-depth examination of life "on the block" expands our understanding of the mechanisms by which neighborhoods shape the perceptions, behaviors, and opportunities of those who live in them. Perry challenges researchers' assumptions about what "good" communities look like and what well-regulated communities want. Live and Let Live shifts the conventional scholarly focus from "What can integration do?" to "How is integration done?"