Which Ethnography? Whose Ethnography? Medical anthropology's Epistemic Sensibilities Among Health Ethnographies

Abstract

Medical anthropologists working in interdisciplinary teams often articulate expertise with respect to ethnography. Yet increasingly, health scientists utilize ethnographic methods. Through a comparative review of health ethnographies, and autoethnographic observations from interdisciplinary research, we find that anthropological ethnographies and health science ethnographies are founded on different epistemic sensibilities. Differences center on temporalities of research, writing processes, sites of social intervention, uses of theory, and analytic processes. Understanding what distinguishes anthropological ethnography from health science ethnography enables medical anthropologists - who sometimes straddle these two ethnographic modes - to better articulate their epistemic positionality and facilitate interdisciplinary research collaborations.

Keywords: Anthropological ethnography; ethnographic dispositions; ethnographic writing; focused ethnography; health science ethnography; medical anthropology epistemology.