Resources for Ethnographers:
Workshops, Conferences, Etc.
This annual conference, hosted by various Chicago-area Sociology departments such as DePaul University, Loyola University, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Northwestern, and others offers a platform for graduate students to present their ethnographic research and receive feedback from local faculty.
Graduate students from all disciplines are encouraged to present their original ethnographic work. We embrace a wide range of ethnographic methods, including field observation, in-depth and focus group interviews, autoethnography, visual ethnography, participant observation, and other qualitative approaches. Submissions on any topic are welcome, regardless of their connection to the conference theme. Previous presentations have covered diverse subjects such as culture, class, crime, education, ethnicity, gender, family, globalization, health, immigration, medicine, methodology, performance ethnography, race, religion, sexualities, social movements, technology, urban poverty, and employment.
Chicago Ethnography Conference
Convened by the Center for Urban Ethnography at Penn GSE since 1980, the Ethnography in Education Research Forum is internationally recognized for its encouragement of original and in-depth ethnographic research on education broadly defined, within and outside the context of schooling. The Forum provides a space for ethnographers in a range of disciplines and fields to come together across generations to share and learn from each other and, in so doing, to become part of a broader intellectual community. The Forum is committed to advancing systematic, rigorous, and engaged inquiry and to involving students in all phases of the meeting.
Previous Conference Themes
2025: “Narratives of Struggle and Hope: Ethnography, Education, and Democracy at a Crossroads”
2021: “Ethnography in Education: Ethnography & Racial Justice”
2020: “Partnerships for Change”
2019: “Methodologies, Equity, & Ethics”
2018: “Whose Knowledge Counts? Research and Practice in Critical Times”
2017: “Ethnography in Action”
Ethnography in Education Research Forum
The Ethnography Collective at UMass supports ethnography in all of its many manifestations.
Grounded in the arts and sciences of deep, immersive research, the Ethnography Collective is a community that takes seriously the critical importance of embodied, lived, and relational knowledge production. We aim to sustain ethnographers in their work and to increase advocacy, education, and visibility for ethnographic research.
The Ethnography Collective organizes events and promotes spaces in which we can learn from each other, discuss directions for research, and grapple with old and new challenges. We embrace creative and meaningful dialogue across disciplines, engage in mutual mentoring, and value the involvement of our graduate student colleagues. Serving as a resource for all things ethnography, we collaborate with like-minded individuals and institutions within and beyond the University.
Ethnography Collective
NYU Ethnography Workshop
Whatever they substantively study, ethnographers’ closeness to their interlocutors’ lives and the shared challenges they face in writing and working through evidence makes their work distinct. The Ethnography Workshop is thus designed as a space where students and faculty can workshop their papers and field notes across substantive concerns, and think both through and beyond their observations.
The working group is open to graduate students and faculty at any stage of their research projects, from those who are only now thinking of a field site, to those drowning in field notes and in the throes of writing; both from NYU and beyond. Workshops will be held on Fridays from 12:30-2:00pm in room 338 at 383 Lafayette Street.
Urban Ethnography Project
The Urban Ethnography Project at Yale supports the ethnographic study of urban life and culture.
Its mission is to continue to develop a community of qualitative researchers who are working in the traditions of DuBois, Park, Thomas, Blumer, Hughes, Drake and Cayton, Gans, Goffman, and Becker, among others.
UEP sponsors occasional academic conferences and workshops that bring together graduate students, post-docs, and faculty members from institutions around the United States and other countries who engage in fellowship as mentors and colleagues to present, discuss, and critique ongoing ethnographic work. These scholars comprise an informal consortium of “junior” and “senior” fellows.