Finding ethnographies - starters - Ethnography

Reference works on anthropology

Use dictionaries, encyclopedias, and handbooks to learn quickly about the state of research on your topic. A good encyclopedia article should describe major themes, current research fronts, and controversial areas; it should also provide a brief bibliography of classic, important, or definitive works on your topic.

International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences (2nd ed)
(26 vols. Elsevier, 2015).
The comprehensive general social science encyclopedia. Useful for learning about major concepts and issues.
Theory in social and cultural anthropology: an encyclopedia
(2 vols. SAGE, 2013)
Routledge encyclopedia of social and cultural anthropology (2nd ed)
(Routledge, 2010)
Encyclopedia of anthropology
(5 vols. SAGE, 2006)
Encyclopedia of cultural anthropology
(4 vols. Henry Holt, 1996)
Print only: Museum Reference/Van Pelt Reference GH307 .E52 1996
Sponsored by HRAF.

Reference works on cultural groups

These dictionaries, encyclopedias, and handbooks describe cultural groups and topics affecting those groups

Encyclopedia of world cultures
(10 vols. GK Hall, 1991-1996)
Also: Encyclopedia of world cultures. Supplement (Macmillan, 2002)
Chapter-length articles describing specific world cultural groups. Produced to complement eHRAF / HRAF.
Native peoples of the world: an encyclopedia of groups, cultures, and contemporary issues
(3 vols. ME Sharpe, 2013)
print only: Museum Library Reference GN380 .N383 2013
Historical Dictionaries of People and Cultures series
(Scarecrow Press, 2000s-present)
Each title covers one cultural group, with brief entries on historical topics. Volumes have lengthy bibliographies.
Ethnic Groups of the World series
(ABC-CLIO, 2011-present)
Articles similar to Encyclopedia of world cultures but with weaker bibliographies.
Encyclopedia of urban cultures: cities and cultures around the world
(4 vols. Grolier, 2002).
print only: Van Pelt Reference HT108.5 .E53 2002
Produced by editors of eHRAF / HRAF
Harvard encyclopedia of American ethnic groups (Belknap Press, 1980)
Print only. Van Pelt Reference Desk E184.A1 H35
The first major survey of the history and culture of individual ethnic groups, with essays on historical and social implications of ethnicity in US society.
Gale encyclopedia of multicultural America. 3rd ed.
(4 vols. Gale, 2014)
The successor to the Harvard encyclopedia, articles on more than 150 ethnic groups, with sections on history, US settlement, culture and assimilation, family and community life, and more.
Multicultural America: an encyclopedia of the newest Americans (Greenwood, 2011)
Focuses on ethnic groups new to the US after the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. Similar to Gale encyclopedia of multicultural America and Harvard encyclopedia of American ethnic groups.
Handbook of North American Indians. 20 vols. (Smithsonian Institution, 1978- .
Print only. Van Pelt Reference & Museum Reference E76.2 .H36
The mammoth reference work on Native American history and culture. See especially:
• Vol. 2, Indians in contemporary society.
• Vol. 4, History of Indian-White relations.
Other volumes mostly provide regional coverage.
Praeger handbook on contemporary issues in Native America (Praeger, 2007)
Print only. Van Pelt stacks E98.S67 J65 2007
Treats linguistic, ethnic, economic, legal, cultural, and environmental topics. See also:
• Native American issues: a reference handbook 2nd ed. (ABC-Clio, 2005).
Oxford African American Studies Center
Reference works include:
• Africana: the encyclopedia of the African and African American experience (2nd ed., 2005)
• Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present
Oxford encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States (Oxford Univ Press, 2005)
Print only. Van Pelt Reference E184.S75 L3622 2010
For additional coverage of smaller Hispanic American cultural groups see:
• Latino history and culture : an encyclopedia (Sharpe, 2010)
Latino issues : a reference handbook (ABC-Clio, 2011)
Print only. Van Pelt stacks E184.S75 S23 2011
Encyclopedia of Asian American issues today (Greenwood Press, 2010)
In print, Van Pelt Reference E184.A75 E53 2010
A very useful work, arranged by topics: diversity/demographics, economy/work, education, health, identity, immigration/refugees/citizenship, law, media, politics, war, youth/family/aged. Attempts to cover all Asian American groups.
Asian American society: an encyclopedia (SAGE, 2014)
Sponsored by the Association for Asian-American Studies. Half traditional encyclopedia covering social, cultural, psychological, economic, and political dimensions of the Asian American experience, half primary-source documents anthology, with video clips to illustrate some topis.
Asian American history and culture : an encyclopedia (ME Sharpe, 2010)
In print, Van Pelt Reference E184.A75 A8287 2010
Covers the arts, culture, community, education, family, gender, marriage, occupation, and work of more than twenty national-origin groups, both historically and in contemporary American society.
Encyclopedia of the Indian diaspora (Univ of Hawaii Press, 2006)
Print only. Van Pelt stacks: DS432.5 .E53 2006
One-quarter of this work is a historical overview of Indian migration worldwide and general cultural aspects of the diaspora community. The bulk of the book is devoted to articles on Indians living in more than 50 countries.
Encyclopedia of medical anthropology: health and illness in the world's cultures
(2 vols. Springer, 2004)
Sponsored by HRAF. Volume 2 covers specific cultural groups.
Encyclopedia of race and racism 2nd ed. (Macmillan, 2013)
Print only. Van Pelt Reference E184.A1 E584 2013
Dictionary of race, ethnicity and culture (SAGE, 2003)
Longish dictionary entries with references, international in scope. A similar work is:
• Encyclopedia of race and ethnic studies / Ellis Cashmore (Routledge, 2004).

Bibliographies & Lit reviews

These works will identify other works that include ethnographic information about cultural groups. A bibliography will list those works, often with brief annotations, and provide subject access either through indexing or layout. A literature review will discuss other works in a narrative format to describe the development and current state of the literature on the subject.

Franklin Catalog identifies bibliographies through the subject word "bibliographies". Here's a Franklin Catalog search that retrieves bibliographies of ethnographies in the Penn Libraries:

Keyword Expert = subject:(bibliograph*) AND subject:(people* OR ethnol* OR "social life")

HRAF bibliographies
Many of these book-length bibliographies of ethnographic research were compiled to assist the creation of eHRAF / HRAF collections. They were produced during the 1950s-early 1990s, so they are great for identifying older ethnographies for world regions or specific cultural groups.
Native American Bibliography series
(Scarecrow Press, 1980s-present)
Several dozen book-length bibliographies on specific Native American cultural groups and topics affecting Native Americans.
Bibliographical series (Newberry Library. Center for the Study of the American Indian)
(Indiana Univ Press and other publishers, 1970s-1980s)
Book-length bibliographies on Native American cultural groups covering historical eras and the recent present-day.
Oxford Bibliographies: Anthropology
Article-length bibliographies, with introductory essays and annotations. See especially:
· "Ethnography" / John L. Jackson.
Annual Review of Anthropology
(1972-present).
A journal of literature-review articles. Each annual volume presents literature reviews in all four fields of anthropology.
Reviews in Anthropology
(Fulltext: 1997-present)
Quarterly journal of book review articles. A typical article uses 3 or 4 new books as a springboard for a discussion of the current state of knowledge on their shared topic. Articles tend to include lengthy bibliographies.
Current Anthropology
(Fulltext, 1997-present)
For 1959-5 years past, use JSTOR
CA encourages discussion among anthropologists. The "CA Forum" and "Book Discussion" sections in many issues are quasi-literature reviews, but more opinionated and argumentative.

Dissertations

Doctoral dissertations are book-length works of original research. (Some dissertations, typically in economics and demography, are collections of article-length research reports.) Dissertations are particularly useful for several reasons:

They may cover current events, or they may address very recent scholarship practices, more quickly than journal articles or books.
They may provide very detailed primary-source material (interview transcripts, text reproductions, expanded statistical treatments), methodological descriptions (questionnaires, interview protocols, event recording templates), and other useful supporting information typically omitted from journal articles or books.
They include chapter-length literature reviews, as doctoral candidates are expected to situate their dissertation topic within the larger research community.

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global (aka UMI)
The comprehensive database of U.S. doctoral dissertations, recently expanded to cover foreign dissertations. For 1997-present, fulltext is often available. For older dissertations, fulltext is scarce - use ILL:Request Book when fulltext is not available.
HINT! Search PQDT using "Anywhere except full text - ALL". PQDT is a fulltext database, and dissertations are book-length works. "ALL" will search titles and abstracts only.

HRAF / eHRAF and ethnographic Big Data

Big Data has had a presence in ethnography since the 1950s, with the creation of the Human Relations Area Files.

HRAF and eHRAF - subject-indexed ethnographies

eHRAF World Cultures and its not-yet-superseded microfiche predecessor Human Relations Area Files (at the Museum Library) provide cultural-attribute indexing for fulltext ethnographies about cultures around the world.

In addition to covering Native American cultures and traditional cultures on other continents, eHRAFincludes a number of US ethnic groups:

African Americans	Amish
Arab Americans	Basque Americans
Cajuns	Chicanos
Chinese Americans	Cuban Americans
Haitian Americans	Hawaiians
Italian Americans	Korean Americans
North American Armenians	North American Hasidic Jews
North American Hmong	Puerto Ricans (Island)
Puerto Ricans (Mainland)	Sea Islanders
Serbian Americans

eHRAF's Outline of Cultural Materials provides subject terms applied to individual paragraphs. By searching for an OCM term, you can quickly locate very specific information within a culture's ethnographies. By searching across several cultures, you can make quick crosscultural comparisons.

"Database of Dreams" - psychological anthropology documents

Microcard Publications of Primary Records in Culture and Personality (Van Pelt Microtext Center: Microcard 61) is a microprint collection of more than 60 reports of unprocessed and uninterpreted psychological anthropology materials for non-Western cultural groups, including Rorschach inkblot tests, Thematic Apperception Tests, sentence completion tests, life histories and autobiographies, and dream accounts, produced during 1956-1962. Two leading Penn psychological anthropologists, A Irving Hallowell and Anthony FC Wallace, were important contributors.

Individual titles within Microcard Publications appear in Franklin Catalog. Van Pelt Library's Microtext Center offers equipment to read microcards.

Microcard Publications is the subject of a recent book:

• Database of dreams: the lost quest to catalog humanity / Rebecca M Lemov. (Yale Univ Press, 2015)

Ethnography: Finding ethnographies - starters