Ethnographies are a staple of teaching cultural anthropology. Although creating learning activities for a new ethnography can be exciting, it can also be time consuming. Below is a list of ethnographies with learning materials to help spark ideas or facilitate adopting new ethnographies into your courses.

The list focuses on book-length ethnographies but there is a small section at the end for articles and films with teaching materials. The list was crowdsourced and contains a sampling of items available.

Organized Alphabetically by Press.

Canadian Scholars Press

Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Research Methodologies: Local Solutions and Global Opportunities, edited by Sumida Huaman, E. & Martin, Nathan D. (2020) https://www.canadianscholars.ca/books/indigenous-knowledge-systems-and-research-methodologies#tab_overview

  • On the above press page, click on “Student Resources” – includes support for scholarly writing and study skills

Duke University Press

Loss and Wonder at the World’s End by Laura Ogden,https://www.dukeupress.edu/loss-and-wonder-at-the-worlds-end

Exiled Home: Salvadoran Transnational Youth in the Aftermath of Violence by Susan Coutin, https://www.dukeupress.edu/exiled-home

Staple Security: Bread and Wheat in Egypt by Jessica Barnes https://www.dukeupress.edu/staple-security

Indiana University Press

Staging Cultural Encounters: Algerian Actors Tour the United States by Jane Goodman, https://iupress.org/9780253049629/staging-cultural-encounters/

Teaching Resources: https://stagingculturalencounters.com

NYU Press

Living on the Spectrum by Elizabeth Fein  https://nyupress.org/9781479864355/living-on-the-spectrum/– hyperlink on website to instructor guide

  • Teacher Resources – features a chapter-by-chapter walkthrough of the book, plus suggested chapter discussion questions targeted specifically for different types of courses
  • General topics covered: Autism, disability, youth, identity, ethnography, neuroscience
  • “classes on research methods (particularly qualitative methods and ethnography), classes on the social study of neuroscience (sociology/anthropology of neuroscience, neuroscience and identity, critical neuroscience, psychiatric/medical anthropology, etc.), and classes on working clinically with people on the autism spectrum (for psychologists, speech and language pathologists, occupational therapists, other health professionals, etc.)”
  • Series- Anthropologies of American Medicine: Culture, Power and Practice

It Can Happen Here: White Power and the Rising Threat of Genocide in the US by Alex Hinton https://nyupress.org/9781479808014/it-can-happen-here/ – hyperlink on website to instructor guide

 The New American Servitude: Political Belonging among African Immigrant Home Care Workers. (2019) by Cati Coe  

  • Topics – aging, care, US, domestic service, race & racism, kinship

OER

Gendered Lives, Global Issues By Nadine T. Fernandez and Katie Nelson  https://genderedlives.americananthro.org

  • Teaching Materials: Includes discussion questions and some test bank questions

Oxford- Issues of Globalization Series  

Cuban Color in Tourism and La Lucha By L. Kaifa Roland  https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/cuban-color-in-tourism-and-la-lucha-9780199739660?cc=us&lang=en&– the teaching discussion questions appears at the end of each chapter

Labor and Legality: An Ethnography of a Mexican Immigrant Network by Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz https://learninglink.oup.com/access/gombergmunoz-student-resources#tag_all-chapters– discussion questions for each chapter

Marriage after Migration: An Ethnography of Money, Romance, and Gender in Globalizing Mexico by Nora Haenn

  • Link to key concepts, additional readings, discussion questions, suggested activities – https://learninglink.oup.com/access/haenn-student-resources#all_resources
  • Topics: international travel, dating and marriage, family, smallholding farming, household economies, youth culture, substance abuse, intimate partner violence, religion and healing, navigating globalization

Routledge – Taylor and Francis Group

Sensing the Everyday: Dialogues from Austerity Greece by C. Nadia Seremetakis (2019) https://www.routledge.com/Sensing-the-Everyday-Dialogues-from-Austerity-Greece/Seremetakis/p/book/9780367187767

  • Teaching Materials – Videos that Accompany the Chapters

Toxic Heritage: Legacies, Futures, and Environmental Injustice Edited by Elizabeth Kryder-Reid and Sarah May (2024)

Open Access Book

Teaching Toxic Heritage Manual (multiple active learning and community engaged activities)

Website resources: https://toxicheritage.com/

Rutgers University Press

Implementing Inequality: The Invisible Labor of International Development (2020) by Rebecca Peters

Infected Kin: Orphan Care and AIDS in Lesotho (2019) by Ellen Block and Will McGrath, https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/infected-kin/9781978804746

Changes in Care: Aging, Migration, and Social Class in West Africa (2021) By Cati Coe 

  • Teacher Resources: Accompanying film: “Making Happiness: Older People Organize Themselves,” 11 minutes. https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-thke-hp15
  • Topics: aging, West Africa, kinship, care
  • Series on Global Perspectives on Aging

Sage

Sage Research Methods Cases edited by Nathan Emmerich https://methods.sagepub.com/Cases

Example of 1 chapter

  • Asha L. Abeyasekera. 2018. ‘Ethics and the Indigenous Anthropologist: The Use of Friendship in Ethnographic Fieldwork’. In N. Emmerich (Ed.), SAGE Research Methods Cases. London. [http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781526438157]
  • Teaching Materials – has a methods map and related content section
  • Topics: Fieldwork, Feminism, Life history research, ethics

University of Alabama Press

Oktoberfest in Brazil: Domestic Tourism, Sensescapes, and German Brazilian Identity by Audrey Ricke https://www.uapress.ua.edu/9780817321642/oktoberfest-in-brazil/

University of Arizona Press

Diabetes Among the Pima: Stories of Survival by Carolyn Smith-Morris

University of British Columbia Press

Writing the Hamat’sa: Ethnography, Colonialism, and the Cannibal Dance by Aaron Glass https://www.ubcpress.ca/writing-the-hamatsa).

  • Teaching Materials: 2004 documentary film (33 min.), In Search of the Hamat’sa: A Tale of Headhunting (DER:https://store.der.org/in-search-of-the-hamatsa-p743.aspx). The film summarizes the history of ethnographic representation of the Hamat’sa, looks at the reception of that material in communities today, and reflexively features the fieldworker/filmmaker connecting the two moments/processes. It fits with the book’s Prologue and final chapter, which is an ethnography of the reception of anthropological texts in First Nations communities today.  

University of Colorado Press

Thanks for Watching: An Anthropological Study of Video Sharing on YouTube (2019) By Patricia Lange   https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/22465

University of Toronto Press

Fat in Four Cultures : A Global Ethnography of Weight (2021) by Cindi Sturtz Sreetharan, Brewis, Alexandra Hardin, Jessica A. Trainer, Sarah , and Amber Wutich.

Gringo Love: Stories of Sex Tourism in Brazil by Marie-Eve Carrier Moisan https://utorontopress.com/9781487594527/gringo-love/–  has a discussion section at the end of the book

Light in Dark Times: The Human Search for Meaning by Alisse Waterston https://utorontopress.com/9781487526405/light-in-dark-times/ –

  • Teaching Materials – press website has an Extra Content section with hyperlink to website – click on “engage” for discussion questions and teaching activities
  • there are two sets of prompts (in the book itself and also on the book’s dedicated website): https://www.lightindarktimesbook.com/  (discussion guide and drawing exercises )
    •  These two sets of prompts are designed for anybody–a person doesn’t need to know how to draw well or be “artistic” to do these exercises. Like the graphic book itself, these two sets of prompts facilitate thinking and learning by means of several modalities
  • Topics –  sense of hope and excitement about the possibilities to transform the world

Lissa: A Story about Medical Promise, Friendship, and Revolution By Sherine Hamdy and Coleman Nye/art by Sarula Bao and Caroline Brewer  https://utorontopress.com/9781487593476/lissa/ website has an Extra Content section with hyperlink to website

University of Washington Press

Return to the Land of the Head Hunters: Edward S. Curtis, the Kwakwaka’wakw, and the Making of Modern Cinema by Aaron Glass and Brad Evans, co-editors.

  • Teaching Materials – Accompanying Videos
  • Aaron Glass, Brad Evans, and Andrea Sanborn, executive producers (https://www.curtisfilm.rutgers.edu/index.php) features extensive AV media and content related to the project and the film, and supplements the book with additional archival documents and photo “exhibits”.
  • DVD release of the restored film, distributed by Milestone Films (https://www.curtisfilm.rutgers.edu/index.php), includes a documentary film on the restoration project, a complete recording of one of the live screening performances, and extensive archival media.

Waveland

Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa  by Katherine Dettwyler  https://www.waveland.com/browse.php?t=24  – Instructor’s Manual Available – listed under the ISBN number

The Gebusi by Bruce Knauft with Anne-Sylvie Malbrancke https://www.waveland.com/browse.php?t=679; link under ISBN Number

Direct Link to instructor resources – https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/bknauft/gebusi/

WW Norton

Sexual Citizens: Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus by Jennifer Hirsch and Shamus Khan

  • Discussion resources page (https://www.sexualcitizens.com/discussionresources) has links to mini-lectures, tips for teaching the book to undergraduates as well as suggestions on how to do so in a trauma-informed way.
  • Space toolkit page https://www.sexualcitizens.com/space-toolkit a resource intended for campuses to map and transform their social and residential space as a community-level strategy to enhance equity and prevent assault, but it could also be modified into a small group project to examine what sexual geographies look like on a campus.
  • Press Link – podcasts and webinars https://www.sexualcitizens.com/presscoverage
  •  Topic: The book examines the social roots of sexual assault as well as the social organization of sexual behavior on an undergraduate residential campus in the US. It takes an intersectional approach to examining how power relations on campus produce contexts in which assaults can happen, but is also a deep dive into the experience of being an undergraduate in a highly stratified and intensely competitive campus environment.

Articles with Teaching Resources

Medical Anthropology Quarterly – Knowing Better? Epistemological Bounds in MAQ from 1975-2021 by Laura Meek

Ethnographic Films with Teaching Resources

Hey Watch This! Sharing the Self Through Media (2020) By Patricia Lange

First Time Home: A story of connection across borders (2021), directed by Esmirna Librado, Noemi Librado Sanchez, Esmeralda Ventura, and Heriberto Ventura, produced by Seth Holmes

Link to film: https://www.pbs.org/video/first-time-home-qhfu0n/

Teaching Materials https://www.firsttimehomefilm.com/discussion-guide

The Rescue List, directed by Alyssa Fedele and Zachary Fink

Documentary Educational Resources (DER) – many of the ethnographic films have accompanying teaching materials

Elemental Productions – directed by Robert Lemelson

Cover Photo from Adobe Stock by Photo And Art Panda