Avoiding unthropology and rigor: remembering to put people first

Nicholas Limerick and Grey Gundaker

Chapter 14 in Research Handbook on the Anthropology of Education, 2026, pp 135-145 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter considers how some ethnographic education research is predicated on common but incongruent assumptions borrowed from other disciplines. We refer to such premises as unthropology. As an example, we unpack rigor, a criterion for quality that attempts accord with methods in other disciplines that equate credibility with laboratory science approaches. We then propose a different orienting premise: “good work” emerges from the guidance of participants during the research process. We suggest the use of terms that sum up more complex interactions and possibilities like honesty, obligation, seismic change, thoroughness, confusion, anomaly, privilege, surprise, and paradox. The epistemological stances of the research and researcher(s) ultimately frame the process and demand radical openness to the unpredictable, unreplicable ways participants will change us.

Keywords: Ethnographic methods; Rigor; Solidarity; Anthropological epistemologies; Collaborative research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035332908
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