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Routledge Advances in Ethnography

About the Book Series

Ethnography is a celebrated, if contested, research methodology that offers unprecedented access to people's intimate lives, their often hidden social worlds and the meanings they attach to these.  The intensity of ethnographic fieldwork often makes considerable personal and emotional demands on the researcher, while the final product is a vivid human document with personal resonance impossible to recreate by the application of any other social science methodology.  This series aims to highlight the best, most innovative ethnographic work available from both new and established scholars.

25 Series Titles


Flashback Drugs and Dealing in the Golden Age of the London Rave Scene

Flashback: Drugs and Dealing in the Golden Age of the London Rave Scene

1st Edition

By Jennifer Ward
January 17, 2019

This book is a detailed and close examination of the rave club drugs market as it took place in nightclubs, dance parties, pubs and bars and among friendship networks in London, in the mid to late 1990s. It focuses on the organizational features of drugs purchasing and selling and differentiates ...

UK Hip-Hop, Grime and the City The Aesthetics and Ethics of London's Rap Scenes

UK Hip-Hop, Grime and the City: The Aesthetics and Ethics of London's Rap Scenes

1st Edition

By Richard Bramwell
June 28, 2018

Young people in London have contributed to the production of a distinctively British rap culture. This book moves beyond accounts of Hip-Hop’s marginality and shows, with an examination of the production, dissemination and use of rap in London, how this cultural form plays an important role in the ...

Narratives of Neglect

Narratives of Neglect

1st Edition

By Jacqui Karn
June 23, 2015

This book tells the story of the process leading up to the demolition of a small council estate in the north of England and its subsequent regeneration. Based on extensive ethnographic research, it addresses the local governance of security and the ways in which the community engaged with attempts ...

Holding Your Square

Holding Your Square

1st Edition

By Christopher W. Mullins
May 21, 2015

This book is about the meanings of masculinities within the social networks of the streets of an American city (St Louis, Missouri), and how these shaped perceptions and enactments of violence. Based on a large number of interviews with offenders the author provides a rich description of life on ...

Strong and Hard Women An ethnography of female bodybuilding

Strong and Hard Women: An ethnography of female bodybuilding

1st Edition

By Tanya Bunsell
July 11, 2014

Females with large muscles evoke strong reactions from men and women, often involving disgust, discomfort, anger and threat. The controversial nature of female bodybuilding has caused a significant rupture on feminist ground. Whilst proponents claim that female bodybuilding is a way of empowering ...

Sport, Difference and Belonging Conceptions of Human Variation in British Sport

Sport, Difference and Belonging: Conceptions of Human Variation in British Sport

1st Edition

By James Rosbrook-Thompson
June 16, 2014

This book combines historical and ethnographic components in examining the ideas about human variation subscribed to by coaches, commentators and sportspeople themselves. The book begins by interrogating the idea of the ‘impulsive’ black sportsman (and the ‘impulsive’ black male more generally), ...

Boy Racer Culture Youth, Masculinity and Deviance

Boy Racer Culture: Youth, Masculinity and Deviance

1st Edition

By Karen Lumsden
May 28, 2014

On the public roads boy racers are a foreboding presence, viewed with suspicion and derision by the ‘respectable’ motorist. The problem of the young (male) driver is one which has plagued authorities and governments due to youths’ acclaimed propensity to engage in deviant and dangerous driving ...

Changing Lives, Changing Drug Journeys Drug Taking Decisions from Adolescence to Adulthood

Changing Lives, Changing Drug Journeys: Drug Taking Decisions from Adolescence to Adulthood

1st Edition

By Lisa Williams
March 19, 2014

This book describes how a group of young people make decisions about drug taking. It charts the decision making process of recreational drug takers and non-drug takers as they mature from adolescence into young adulthood. With a focus upon their perceptions of different drugs, it situates their ...

Builders Class, Gender and Ethnicity in the Construction Industry

Builders: Class, Gender and Ethnicity in the Construction Industry

1st Edition

By Darren Thiel
November 08, 2013

Building workers constitute between five and ten per cent of the total labour market in almost every country of the world. They construct, repair and maintain the vital physical infrastructure of our societies, and we rely upon and trust their achievements every day. Yet we know surprisingly little...

Crack Cocaine Users High Society and Low Life in South London

Crack Cocaine Users: High Society and Low Life in South London

1st Edition

By Daniel Briggs
October 24, 2013

Crack cocaine users have significant health problems, and place a significant burden on social services, the criminal justice system and drug treatment agencies. Among policymakers, professionals and the wider section of society, they are the most poorly understood drug-using group and have the ...

City, Street and Citizen The Measure of the Ordinary

City, Street and Citizen: The Measure of the Ordinary

1st Edition

By Suzanne Hall
June 21, 2013

How can we learn from a multicultural society if we don’t know how to recognise it? The contemporary city is more than ever a space for the intense convergence of diverse individuals who shift in and out of its urban terrains. The city street is perhaps the most prosaic of the city’s public parts, ...

Dirty Dancing An Ethnography of Lap Dancing

Dirty Dancing: An Ethnography of Lap Dancing

1st Edition

By Rachela Colosi
March 16, 2012

Based on ethnographic research conducted in 'Starlets', a lap-dancing club in the North of England, this book delves into what is often seen as the 'deviant', and 'stigmatized' world of lap-dancing. As well as the relationships between dancers, the author offers a unique insider's account of ...

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