How to Use ethnography in a Sentence

ethnography

noun
  • All available ethnography suggests that there never has been such a thing.
    — Ilana E. Strauss, The Atlantic, 26 Feb. 2016
  • He doesn’t get trapped in shallow ethnography like Scorsese does.
    — Armond White, National Review, 31 Jan. 2020
  • As such, Savaş has written a book that reads like a fictional ethnography.
    — Rhian Sasseen, The Atlantic, 11 July 2024
  • All students must take a yearlong course called Ethnographies of Work.
    — Alina Tugend, New York Times, 22 June 2016
  • Someone with more knowledge of South Asian ethnography should weigh in.
    — Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 4 Aug. 2013
  • These projects often cross the line from cookbook to ethnography, buoyed by shoe-leather reporting overseas.
    — Jamie Feldmar, Saveur, 15 Apr. 2026
  • There’s no ethnography here nor an intrusive attempt to frame these images for those who’d only encounter them on the big screen.
    — Manuel Betancourt, Variety, 17 Nov. 2022
  • Most Americans first encountered a Leiris who had little to do with ethnography.
    — Sasha Frere-Jones, The New Yorker, 9 Dec. 2020
  • At this point most Americans should in theory have a general sense of Afghan ethnography.
    — Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 29 Mar. 2012
  • But the emergence of these overdue ethnographies speaks to a growing demand from readers for books that dig deep, uncovering stories that rarely get told.
    — Jamie Feldmar, Saveur, 15 Apr. 2026
  • The situation of men like Mike and his friends had not figured prominently in previous ethnographies of the inner city.
    — James Forman Jr., The Atlantic, 17 Sep. 2014
  • Culture Warlords is not truly a history or an ethnography or a memoir or even really a travelogue from racist site to racist site.
    — Scott W. Stern, The New Republic, 28 Oct. 2020
  • Other analysts have turned to digital ethnography of social media as an alternative source of insight.
    — Elizaveta Gaufman, The Conversation, 21 Feb. 2026
  • The mammoth building exhibits a smorgasbord of natural history and ethnography in a prime corner near Hyde Park.
    — Sophie Davies, Condé Nast Traveler, 23 Mar. 2018
  • The ethnography is rather rich in documenting the dehumanization of these two populations at the hands of their Bantu neighbors.
    — Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 5 Sep. 2011
  • Kolitz’s ethnography, crucially, does not portray gooners as some freakishly niche cohort operating at the outer edges of society.
    — Brady Brickner-Wood, New Yorker, 14 Jan. 2026
  • The book is an unconventional introduction to India’s biggest city and an invitation to the joys and challenges of ethnography.
    — Lisa Bjorkman, Foreign Affairs, 20 Apr. 2021
  • With books ranging from brilliant women from history, to brilliant women writing history (ethnography and memoir), there’s plenty for nonfiction stans.
    — Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times, 1 Feb. 2024
  • On entering, you’ll be given a pair of white gloves to wear while browsing—and there’s everything from ethnographies of Swedish design to Ren Hang photobooks on offer.
    — Laura Bannister, Vogue, 17 June 2018
  • This sort of case study belongs to the larger French practice of proximate ethnography, which developed in the nineteen-eighties, when mass tourism had made the world feel smaller and faraway lands less exotic.
    — Lili Owen Rowlands, The New Yorker, 17 Nov. 2021
  • Here the ethnography seems to be clear that though the majority of men in the majority of societies did not practice polygamy, in most cultures polygamy was acceptable, and commonly practiced by high status males.
    — Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 15 Dec. 2010
  • Trips back to Mexico have taught her about ethnography and indigenous lineage, which has led to a rich exchange of ideas between mother and daughter, as well as bodies of work that keep these creative traditions alive.
    — Jennifer Piejko, Los Angeles Times, 7 Sep. 2023
  • My mind went searching unbidden into deep recesses of memory where countless displays of Native American ethnography, seen over years, are stored.
    — Murray Whyte, BostonGlobe.com, 18 Aug. 2022
  • KitchenTown carries out design research, consumer insights and ethnography, and new product concept ideation for start-ups, and gives them access to a product development lab in exchange for a monthly fee.
    — Brian Kateman, Forbes, 20 Sep. 2021
  • The museum houses objects related to ethnography, culture and arts, such as a traditional Kazakh yurt, furniture and jewelry.
    — Gilly Pickup, CNN, 30 May 2017
  • Simply extracting terms and data from an ethnography disregards the holistic nature of the text, which contains specific information that's needed to accurately capture the context of the song.
    — Marcus Woo, Discover Magazine, 30 Nov. 2019
  • Both books have become classics in the field of Chinese ethnography, thanks to their analysis of how world-historical changes like the communist revolution affected everyday rural life.
    — Clay Risen, BostonGlobe.com, 26 Aug. 2023
  • Rinzler thought Thompson’s menacing outlaw ethnography on the Oakland motorcycle club was spellbinding.
    — Mozes Zarate, San Francisco Chronicle, 16 July 2020
  • For those wishing to gain further insight into the rich array of cultures found across Indonesia, the museum offers a massive ethnography map alongside exhibits that highlight daily life across the different islands.
    — Jared Ranahan, Forbes, 27 Mar. 2023
  • It is accompanied by a book of probing essays about the role of ethnography and colonialism in shaping how people of African descent were represented in France during the 19th century.
    — Philip Kennicott, Washington Post, 14 May 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ethnography.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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