Review of Van Maanen's Tales of the Field

Van Maanen, J. (1988). Tales of the field: On writing ethnography. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

I was looking forward to Van Maanen’s text on writing ethnography for quite a while. Although I appreciated his writing style and years of ethnographic fieldwork experience, I was less than excited about the text. I found the chapters that delimited and described the types of ethnographic accounts (realist, confessional, and impressionist) valuable, but as usual, appreciated the examples of these styles more appealing. Van Maanen peppered the text with accounts (both published and not) of exemplars of each style of ethnography. After four years of reading drier peer-reviewed journal articles, it is refreshing to read high quality ethnographic work.

Van Maanen has convinced me, however, that I must try my hand at this ethnographic writing. If it is half as enjoyable to write as it is to read, my final year of dissertation research and writing will be a treasure rather than a chore!