ETHNOGRAPHYS WARRANTS

''Assuming your argument is empirically sound, so what?'' Ethnographer s are especially vulnerable to this question because their warrants ar e commonly diffused throughout their texts, because they aim to descri be what is obvious to their subjects and because such rude questions u sually are raised only silently. Perhaps the most common warrant for e thnography is a claim that social forces have created a moralized igno rance that separates research subjects and the research audience. The author discusses several dilemmas that plague ethnographers when they attempt to bridge the gap, and then he describes the strategy of natur alistic ethnography. Last, he briefly addresses a broader range of war rants, identifying five additional, frequently used, complementary jus tifications for ethnographic studies.