Volume 1 • Issue 1 • Winter 2025
Semi-Structured: The Open-Access Journal for Public Ethnography

Ethnography in Action

Introduction from the Editor: Welcome to Semi-Structured

Below is an excerpt from the Editor’s Introduction. Access and read the full text below.

We are thrilled to present the inaugural issue of Semi-Structured, an open-access journal from the Public Ethnography Lab dedicated to showcasing ethnography as it unfolds in the world. This journal exists because we believe ethnographic work matters beyond the academy—that the insights generated through sustained engagement with communities, organizations, and institutions can and should inform decisions, shape practices, and drive meaningful change.

The title Semi-Structured reflects both our methodological orientation and our editorial philosophy. Like the semi-structured interview that balances prepared questions with space for unexpected directions, this journal creates structure while remaining open to the diverse forms ethnographic practice takes in the world. We seek pieces that are rigorous yet accessible, analytical yet compelling—writing that honors the complexity of ethnographic work while remaining legible to broad audiences.

This inaugural issue asks: What does ethnography in action look like? The six pieces gathered here answer this question from strikingly different contexts—from sweatshops in Argentina to displacement camps in Ethiopia, from migrant mutual aid in Maryland to Indigenous communities in Mexico, from a maritime museum in Connecticut to courtrooms in Costa Rica. Together, they reveal ethnography not as a passive recording of social life but as an active practice of listening, translating, advocating, and collaborating across lines of power, geography, and institutional mandate….

Looking Forward

The pieces in this inaugural issue demonstrate that ethnography in action takes many forms—none more authentic than others. It can be slow relationship-building in sweatshop neighborhoods or a one-day workshop challenging NGO assumptions. It can mean organizing a weaving class, facilitating a board game, or teaching prosecutors about kinship systems. It can involve submitting IRB amendments or legal briefs, writing reports for donors or policy recommendations for museums.

What unites these diverse practices is a commitment to listening without rushing to solutions, collaborating without dominating, and translating without distorting. These authors show that ethnographic sensibilities—attentiveness to power, comfort with complexity, patience with process, and respect for local knowledge—remain essential in a world increasingly governed by metrics, standardization, and technical rationality.

As we look toward future issues of Semi-Structured, we hope this collection inspires others to document their own practices of public ethnography. We want to hear from practitioners using ethnographic methods in unexpected places, from communities deploying ethnographic approaches to document their own experiences, and from researchers navigating the productive tensions between action and analysis, engagement and critique, solidarity and scholarship.

Welcome to Semi-Structured. Welcome to Ethnography in Action.

Thurka Sangaramoorthy
Editor, Semi-Structured
Public Ethnography Lab
December 2025

Explore Volume 1, Issue 1: Ethnography in Action

Featured
Editor’s Introduction - Issue #1: Ethnography in Action
Editor’s Introduction - Issue #1: Ethnography in Action

We are thrilled to present the inaugural issue of Semi-Structured, an open-access journal from the Public Ethnography Lab dedicated to showcasing ethnography as it unfolds in the world. This journal exists because we believe ethnographic work matters beyond the academy—that the insights generated through sustained engagement with communities, organizations, and institutions can and should inform decisions, shape practices, and drive meaningful change.

Read More →
Listening Across Worlds: Weaving Justice Through an Implementation Project in Argentina
Listening Across Worlds: Weaving Justice Through an Implementation Project in Argentina

What does ethnography look like when global agendas encounter local worlds? In what follows, I attempt to address this question from my own situated experience. The very month I      completed my PhD viva voce, I stepped into a professional world I had only encountered from its margins. I began working in the Monitoring and Evaluation Area of a Latin American NGO with an office in Argentina, where I was hired to coordinate research and publications. Until then, my knowledge of the “third sector” (that is, non-profit organizations) came from sporadic collaborations through community projects and university outreach initiatives

Read More →
When Parents Speak and Practitioners Listen: A Bottom-Up Workshop on Early Childhood Interventions among Borana Pastoralists, Ethiopia
When Parents Speak and Practitioners Listen: A Bottom-Up Workshop on Early Childhood Interventions among Borana Pastoralists, Ethiopia

On 30 July 2025, at 9:00 a.m.‌, parents, NGO‌ practitioners, government representatives, and academic ‌scholar‌s gathered at Nigat Hotel‌ in Yabello for the workshop. This gathering marked the beginning of the research validation works‌hop for my doctoral study ‌entitled "An Ethnographic Look into Early Childhood Development (ECD) Interventions among the Borana Oromo Pastoralists of Southern Ethiopia." Participants took their seats wit‌h a shared sense of purpose, recognizing that the workshop created an exceptional opportunity for ‌parents and practitioners to sit together and share ideas on equal terms.

Read More →