This book describes ethnographic fieldwork as the gradual accumulation of knowledge about something you don’t know much about to begin with, facilitated by theoretical and methodological instruments. The book provides an easy to read introduction to quite complex ideas about knowledge and the practices in which we gather it.

Jan Blommaert is Professor in the Department of Culture Studies and Director of Babylon, Center for the Study of Superdiversity at Tilburg University, the Netherlands.

Dong Jie completed her PhD at Tilburg University in 2009. She is a linguistic anthropologist at the Babylon Center and the Department of Languages and Cultures, Tilburg University. Her publications include Ethnographic Fieldwork: A Beginner’s Guide (2010, with Jan Blommaert).

Jan Blommaert is Professor of Language, Culture and Globalization at Tilburg University, where he is also the director of the Babylon Center. His publications include Language Ideological Debates (1999), Discourse: A Critical Introduction (2005), Grassroots Literacy (2008) and The Sociolinguistics of Globalization (2010).

Dong Jie completed her PhD at Tilburg University in 2009, her dissertation was about the practices of identity construction of Chinese internal migrants in Beijing. She is a postdoctoral fellow at the Babylon Center and the Department of Languages and Cultures, Tilburg University.

I expect many readers of Ethnographic Fieldwork will wish they had a book like this one prior to their own early experiences in the field, and it will no doubt be of great value to students and others looking for guidance on how to implement ethnographic principles. Though the book doesn't bill itself as a text on linguistic anthropology or sociolinguistics, it is of particular use to those who are interested in the interface of language and culture because of the way it centers language data and linguistically-oriented analysis…The text is highly accessible and easy to read in an afternoon, but it also maintains a richness through illustrative examples drawn from Blommaert's fieldwork in Europe and Africa and Dong's in Beijing. Impressively, there is something for almost everyone in this little book.

M. Cedar Face, Southern Oregon University:

A useful addition to the literature on the methodology of ethnographic fieldwork, this slim...volume covers the nuts and bolts of fieldwork--from how to conduct interviews to what types of data to collect (everything, especially in the beginning)--while rooting best practices in the theoretical foundation of ethnography as analytical science. Summing Up: Recommended.

Cécile B. Vigouroux, Simon Fraser University, Canada:

Written in an entertaining and accessible style, this book is a refreshing approach to ethnographic fieldwork. Unlike many other authors who present field research as a set of ready-made recipes to follow, Blommaert and Dong engage their readers in an exciting theoretical and methodological journey into the ethnographic paradigm. This is a must-read for anybody interested in ethnography.

Angela Creese, University of Birmingham, UK:

This immensely accessible and readable book engages the reader from beginning to end in a style which is informal, informative and intellectually fulfilling. Ethnography is presented as a democratic process, open to multiple and layered interpretations, recording uniquely situated realities through specialised analysis. Blommaert and Dong offer invaluable practical advice, guiding the reader through the sequences of the ethnographic research process. They successfully illustrate the fundamentals of ethnographic fieldwork, while presenting a set of splendid resources for both the beginner researcher and the experienced ethnographer.