Elite Ethnography

As a comparison of three journals reveals, ethnographers in the field of US sociology have largely tended to “study up” rather than “study down.” In other words, problems facing marginalized groups have received far more detailed qualitative study than the habits (and habitus) of elite groups. While recognizing that this pattern has recently shifted toward a flowering of cross-national work on elites, this chapter looks at past disparities to investigate whether the difference in ethnographic focus has been—until now—exceptional within the American academic field. Specifically, the chapter focuses on a cross-cultural comparison of French and American ethnographies. In the United States, many ethnographers assume that elites are hard to study because of difficulties related to access. Yet perusing French ethnography reveals that partly due to the theoretical influence of Pierre Bourdieu, well-known work in France like that of Michel and Monique Pinçon-Charlot has long succeeded in providing detailed chronicles of elite groups’ daily lives. This chapter argues that the issue to date has likely involved dispositional orientations as well as challenges of access. There may be subtle reasons, such as concerns with Goffman-like contagion effects, why sociologists unwittingly prefer to study the downtrodden over the privileged. In addition to analyzing the relative influences of access versus dispositional factors, the chapter ends with four reasons why attention to elites is important for ethnography and sociology, as both strive to grasp growing inequalities and the psychosocial causes of recurrent cycles of power and powerlessness.