Political Theory with Ethnographic Sensibility: A Democratic Praxis 

Research

Political Theory with Ethnographic Sensibility: A Democratic Praxis 

Abstract

Should political theorists engage in ethnographic fieldwork? This paper offers a new argument in favor of adopting an ethnographic sensibility: it helps ‘democratize’ political theory in two ways. First, ethnographic sensibility enables theorists to demonstrate democratic respect for individuals or communities by incorporating their voices and practices into theory. Political theory has been criticized for insufficient attentiveness to real-life politics; part of this problem is relational. Theories about how different agents (e.g., government officials, activists) should act are often developed without attending to those agents’ lived experiences and practices. Ethnographic sensibility helps address this concern through the use of thick description. Second, by rendering the perspectives of, and challenges faced by, different agents intelligible to others, ethnographically informed political theory may help promote mutual understanding among citizens; perspective-taking is important for democracy whether or not one agrees with the perspectives being considered.

Keywords:

  • Keyword: Democratic theory
  • Keyword: Ethnographic sensibility
  • Keyword: Democratic respect
  • Keyword: Mutual understanding
  • Keyword: Democratic function

How to Cite:

Yim, E., (2026) “Political Theory with Ethnographic Sensibility: A Democratic Praxis ”, Political Philosophy 3(2). doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/pp.27676

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Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice, Princeton University.

Political Theory with Ethnographic Sensibility: A Democratic Praxis

Elaine Lok-Lam Yim

Politics, Princeton University, US

In my first study, the town meeting, when Selby’s less powerful citizens told me that they did not mind others running the town because the people who ran the town were ‘just like I am’ or because ‘we’re all friends here’, I dismissed their reactions as a form of ‘false consciousness’. But when I studied the crisis center a few years later, [and] its less powerful members said much the same thing[, t]his time, to my surprise, I believed them. The difference between Selby and Helpline, I realized, was that I believed the citizens of Selby had conflicting interests, while the members of Helpline had predominantly common interests.… Once I began to think in terms of common and conflicting interest, I realized that Selby’s citizens probably had more common interests than I had previously recognized. – Jane Mansbridge1

Political theory faces a methodological moment, having been criticized for being insufficiently attentive to real-life politics.2 In the wake of this methodological moment, some theorists have chosen to engage in theoretical projects with ethnographic sensibility.3 Existing arguments in favor of political theory with ethnographic sensibility hold that this method produces more grounded theories. For example, ethnographic sensibility sheds light on what meanings people associate with political values and why agents fail to respond to moral demands, allows theorists to formulate new questions grounded in specific empirical contexts, and promotes reflection on our existing normative commitments.4

This article provides an underexplored argument in favor of ethnographic sensibility: that ethnographic sensibility contributes to ‘democratizing’ political theorizing in two distinct ways. First, it helps theorists to relate to their interlocutors in a manner consistent with democratic respect. Second, it may improve democratic preconditions in our society by fostering mutual understanding among citizens. Both aspects can be illustrated through Jane Mansbridge’s classic work Beyond Adversary Democracy.

One underappreciated dimension of the critique against political theory is relational: political theory fails to relate properly to the individuals whose practices constitute the subject matter of its research.5 This article argues that ethnographically informed political theory helps alleviate this concern. Consider Mansbridge’s work: Rather than theorizing from an armchair about whether equal power is necessary for democracy, she engages with people who are committed to democratic values and are practicing forms of democracy in their town halls or workplaces. Her inclusion of the voices of Selby’s residents and Helpline’s workers demonstrates democratic respect for those who practice democracy at a local or workplace level. More generally, fieldwork and ethnographic writing allow us (theorists) to include the voices and practices of our interlocutors, as well as the ways in which our interlocutors interpret the meaning of their practices. This allows us to demonstrate democratic respect to our interlocutors, thereby forming part of the democratic praxis of ethnographically informed research.

Furthermore, beyond demonstrating democratic respect to those whom we seek to study, the practice of ethnographically informed theory can contribute to improving democratic preconditions of our larger society. By putting forward the contexts upon which our interlocutors act and why they act the way they do, these works can enable readers to better understand the actions of others, even if they disagree with these actions. This provides a basis for mutual understanding and empathy. Consider again Mansbridge’s work: To enable readers to understand why some of her interlocutors do not see equal power as necessary for a democratic town hall, she describes the context showing that Selby’s citizens have more common interests than we would otherwise think. Her work enables readers to have a better understanding of why her interlocutors hold such belief.

This article seeks to advance our thinking about ethnographic sensibility in political theory in three main ways. First, whereas existing arguments for ethnographic sensibility focus on the epistemic benefits this method brings, this article establishes ethnographic sensibility as a democratic praxis. While regarding ethnographic methods as epistemically valuable might involve adopting a stance of openness toward the perspectives of the people or communities one studies, my democratic argument goes beyond this by establishing what our democratic commitments demand from us (as political theorists) while engaging in certain political theory projects and how political theory can contribute to improving democratic conditions (not just theorizing about them). Second, while existing arguments focus on the importance of ethnographic immersion and fieldwork in attaining new knowledge and topics of inquiry, this article emphasizes the role of an ethnographic style of writing, particularly thick description, in promoting mutual understanding. Third, this article contributes to discussions about how researchers interested in adopting an ethnographic sensibility should think about the choice between different methods, an issue that is underexplored in the existing literature.

I. WHAT IS POLITICAL THEORY WITH ETHNOGRAPHIC SENSIBILITY?

In recent years, we have seen an increase in the use of ethnographic material by political theorists.6 The ethnographic turn is part of the methodological moment mentioned in the introduction: by bringing researchers closer to the people and events that they seek to understand, ethnographic methods allow researchers to ground our theories in the realities of the daily lives of our interlocutors.7 But it would be a mistake simply to identify the ethnographic turn in political theory with ethnography as it has been conceptualized in anthropology.

In anthropology, ethnographic immersion means covering the full extent of the phenomena in each aspect of the culture studied, to ‘grasp the native’s point of view, his relations to life, to realise his vision of his world’,8 and to aim for ‘thick description’, which requires interpretation of cultural meaning and context in addition to reporting observed behavior.9 Unlike anthropology, political theoretical works speak of an ‘ethnographic sensibility: the idea is to approach ethnography less as a method (participant observation) than as a sensibility, as generative of theoretical insights’.10

Two features are essential for ethnographically informed political theory. First, ethnographic sensibility emphasizes that the scholar should attain proximity to the subject matter of our research.11 Second, ethnographic sensibility typically emphasizes incorporating an ethnographic style of writing: using thick description to represent not just the views or actions but also the contexts, meanings and intentions behind those views or actions, to allow readers to put themselves in the shoes of our interlocutors. Whether a piece of writing achieves thick description is a matter of degree, but at minimum an ethnographic sensibility requires the scholar to demonstrate the agency of their interlocutors to the readers. For example, rather than merely reporting that the crisis helpline’s staffs accept power inequality in their workplace, Mansbridge also describes what equality means to them, why they find some forms of inequality acceptable, as well as the context of their workplace.12 In other words, ethnographically informed political theory learns from the discipline of anthropology and borrows elements of attaining proximity and ethnographic writing to enrich academic political theory.13

Identifying ethnographically informed political theory through these features, as opposed to the specific method of participant observation, opens up more diverse ways of engaging in ethnographically informed theory.14 This may include relational interviewing, a type of interview that sees interviewing as a two-way dialogue and emphasizes how interviewers should relate to their interlocutors.15 It may include historical or archival ethnography, a method that involves treating the archive as a site for ethnographic fieldwork, focusing on reading and presenting archival materials in a way that captures ‘being there’ and representing the lived experience of people and community in the archive.16 It may also include methods that include one’s interlocutors in (at least part of) the production of the research: this includes what is sometimes called ‘participatory action research’, ‘co-production of research’, ‘community-based research’, as well as other innovative methods that aims to allow one’s interlocutors to speak for themselves (e.g., Mitchell Duneier includes in his book Sidewalk an afterword written by one of his interlocutors17), provided the two features of ethnographic sensibility are satisfied.18 Methods that have the potential of being ethnographically informed, i.e., can be used to attain some level of proximity but are not always executed in a way that involves an ethnographic style of writing, include in-depth case studies and deliberative polling. On the other hand, survey methods would typically not be ethnographically informed, because surveys often focus on gathering information from a large, representative group of people, rather than attaining proximity.

Not all empirically informed theory is ethnographically informed. Recent years have seen a rise in empirically informed theory: notable examples include Isaac’s historically informed political theory,19 Carens’ contextual political theory,20 Waldron’s ‘political’ political theory,21 Fishkin’s theorizing with democratic innovation,22 and Bagg’s empirically informed critical realist theory.23 While empirically informed theories often share a commitment to making political theory more relevant to the real world, most do not incorporate an ethnographic style of writing.

Existing literature on ethnographically informed theory discusses the benefits of using fieldwork, focusing on how ethnographic sensibility creates more grounded theories and how fieldwork sheds light on what meanings people associate with political values.24 Ethnographic sensibility helps us as political theorists understand the nature of the normative demands that individuals face and explains why agents sometimes fail to respond to these demands: for example, Zacka’s When the State Meets the Street allows readers to understand the conflicting demands street-level bureaucrats face when exercising discretion and how Zacka’s interlocutors cope with them.25 Ethnography can also uncover new topics for normative inquiry: for instance, Longo’s The Politics of Borders show how borders are complex and multi-faceted, thus challenging traditional ideas of sovereignty and opening up new topics for inquiry.26

Fieldwork also helps us revise our commitments to abstract normative principles and values. An example is Mansbridge’s Beyond Adversary Democracy, where Mansbridge rethinks the nature of political equality and its relationship with equal power based on her observation that workers in a democratic workplace find unequal power unobjectionable when they share the same goals and objectives.27 Immersion also allows theorists to uncover implicit biases within the discipline and attunes us to forms of otherwise hidden harms, making ethnographically informed theory particularly well-suited to further feminist and postcolonial agendas.28

What unites these advantages are their focus on what fieldwork and/or attaining proximity provides for political theory. I agree that these are important benefits, but I also think more can be said about how ethnographic sensibility helps make the practice of political theorizing more in line with democratic values that many of us are committed to, and the role of ethnographic writing in promoting a more ‘democratic’ political theory, as will be detailed in the next two sections.

II. ETHNOGRAPHIC SENSIBILITY DEMONSTRATING DEMOCRATIC RESPECT

This section takes up the first limb of how ethnographic sensibility helps democratize political theory: it can be a particularly well-suited first step for theorists to demonstrate democratic respect to people we theorize about. Examining the moral significance of ethnographic sensibility also sheds light on how political theory ought to relate to the social world it seeks to theorize.

A. The Relational Concern: Political Theory and Democratic Respect

Political theory has been criticized for not being attentive to real-life politics. Ian Shapiro captures this critique in describing political theory as engaging in ‘navel-gazing’ and not sufficiently informed by empirical reality, arguing that the discipline ‘ha[s] evolved close to the point where [it is] of scant interest to anyone other than [its] practitioner.’29 A less-discussed dimension of this problem is relational: political theory neglects how people inhabiting different roles interpret the values of their practices when theorizing how those practices should change.30 Two recent influential accounts articulate this concern. Avner de Shalit frames it as an inconsistency in normative reasoning: political philosophers believe that ‘what people think matters’, but ‘when it comes to philosophizing they often turn a blind eye to what people think’.31 Brooke Ackerly views the concern as involving the feminist critique that contemporary normative theory fails to attend to the voices of the marginalized (e.g., women). She argues that some practices of political theory amount to claiming ‘political privilege’, the assumption that only the philosopher has the privilege to know, and contributes to the ‘epistemic oppression’ of those not perceived as knowers.32

The concern this article articulates is more specific: how researchers can show democratic respect to individuals or groups who engage in practices we theorize about. By ‘respect’, I refer to what Darwall calls ‘recognition respect’, which consists in ‘giving appropriate consideration or recognition to some feature of its object in deliberating about what to do.’33 The idea of respect to all people is often attributed to Kant: ‘Such a being is thus an object of respect and, so far, restricts all (arbitrary) choice.’34 This is to be contrasted with ‘appraisal respect’, which consists of positive appraisal of a person or their qualities, judging someone as deserving our respect. Whereas appraisal respect is relevant to epistemic arguments for ethnographic sensibility, my democratic respect argument only requires recognition respect.

While it is widely agreed that humans are entitled to respect, what that respect entails is not. This article focuses on a democratic conception of respect: democratic respect as relating to each other as equals.35 Unlike the minimal understanding of democracy as competitive election advanced by Adam Przeworski and Joseph Schumpeter,36 the underlying notion of democracy in ‘democratic respect’ is a substantive one, encompassing values like equality and respect: ‘insofar as we are to have ongoing social relations with other moral equals, we have reason to relate to them as social equals’.37

Democratic values like equality and respect are relevant to academic knowledge production: researchers need to give appropriate consideration or recognition to the individuals or communities who form the subject matter of our research. In the case of political theorizing, demonstrating democratic respect means theorists should try to understand the perspectives and practices of people whom we write about whenever feasible. Specifically, when we write about theoretical issues concerning them (e.g., practical ethics for certain groups or organizations), we should try to engage with their viewpoints and their practices.38 Call this ‘the relational concern’ of political theorizing. In so far as the theorist is committed to democratic values but fails to engage with those whose practice he/she theorizes about, this concern is internal to values that the theorist upholds.

The relational concern arises when a political theorist writes about how agents of change ought to act (e.g., their practices, how they can enact change) without attempts to understand their perspectives. Political theorists often aspire to creating changes towards a more just world; but so do many non-academics, some of whom actually engage in practices to create change (e.g., through activism, advocacy, engaging in various social justice related works). A respectful way of discussing how to promote change (which inevitably requires agents of change) should engage with those who are already undertaking such practices and be attentive to the challenges they face.

Not all political theory is about how agents of change ought to act, nor is ethnographic sensibility’s relevance simply a matter of topic: within any topic, some approaches call for it more than others. Take two issues within migration ethics: (i) whether borders should be ‘open’ or ‘closed’ in an ideal world, given commitments to values like freedom or equality, and (ii) how different sectors of society should respond to a refugee crisis. The former traces the implications of certain moral commitments for issues we care about, without directly guiding anyone’s actions, so ethnographic sensibility matters less. The latter concerns people with expertise in existing practices (e.g., asylum judges) whose decisions directly affect others’ livelihoods (e.g., refugees), so including the voices and circumstances of those affected matters more.

While not universally relevant, the relational concern is increasingly important as the discipline calls for making political theory more relevant to our world, that we need more ‘non-ideal’ theories that guide our transitional path to a better and more just world. As Ben Laurence points out, a transitional theory ought to identify plausible agents of change that could potentially enact changes, not just addressing an amorphous political community.39 Once we identify those agents, we will likely discover that some existing individuals or groups have already made efforts to promote such change. As such, once we move beyond abstract theories towards how to create a more just world, ethnographic sensibility will likely be relevant for demonstrating democratic respect to those engaging in relevant practices. Thus, this call for ethnographic sensibility supplements the broader call to make political theory more relevant to our world.

B. Alleviating the Relational Concern: Ethnographic Sensibility as a Democratic Praxis

How should political theorists demonstrate democratic respect to people whom we theorize about? While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, this section argues that there are reasons to see ethnographically informed research as a particularly well suited first step to demonstrating democratic respect, at least when it is feasible.40

First, ethnographically informed research demonstrates that the views of people matter. An important aspect of democratic respect is that we see others as moral agents of their own with their own perspectives that we need to try to understand. To give an example, in City of Equals, Wolff and de Shalit use interviews (or what they call ‘philosophical conversations’) to incorporate people’s views about equality in a city; they see this incorporation as important if we are to create an index to measure how far a city is from attaining relational equality.41 Consider also Luhrmann’s work on homelessness: Luhrmann’s use of ethnography helps us stop seeing the homeless as mere passive victims in need of rescue: ‘When you walk out of the middle class to sit down in a homeless shelter, you want someone like Katie to be an innocent victim, sweet, helpless, deserving. You want there to be someone to blame and someone to save. That is pathetically naïve.’42 Seeing the homeless as agents involves seeing them in more complex lights, in their own lights, as agents whose feelings and sense of self-esteem matter: ‘Zaney, Katie, and the other women shared a culture in which the refusal to accept housing was a meaningful social signal, rather than just another symptom of psychosis, and that its meaning was tied up with the toughness it took to survive’.43 In doing so, this work also helps us theorize what democratic societies should do: it gives reasons in favor of providing housing with no required visits with mental health providers, as it addresses the problem that homeless people reject housing because of their need to acknowledge that they are not crazy, that they are strong and can survive.

Second, ethnographic writing is particularly well-suited to address the relational problem because of the use of thick description: the provision of rich, contextualized accounts of social actions. Thick description allows academics to demonstrate democratic respect to the people whose practices we write about by incorporating voices like Luhrmann’s interlocutors into the academic sphere, thereby combatting what Ackerly calls ‘epistemic oppression’ by academics. By portraying their viewpoints to the readers through thick description of the lives of homeless people Luhrmann met, Luhrmann’s work encourages readers to see from the perspective of the homeless people, to understand their agency, and thereby serves an important democratic function. Consider also Mansbridge’s work: her description of the democratic workplace, as well as the workers therein, explains to readers why unequal power is acceptable to those who value political equality when they share similar goals (i.e., in the realm of unitary democracy rather than adversary democracy), and why it is reasonable to accept unequal power in those circumstances.44 But even if the readers do not reach the same conclusion, the views of the workers are now in the academic sphere and treated as a view worthy of debate.

Here, one might worry that ethnographic sensibility is insufficient to demonstrate respect and could even be dangerously misleading. This objection goes as follows: The power inequalities between the researchers and the researched are inescapable. Trying to understand the views of our interlocutors is insufficient to avoid those power asymmetries. The objection worries that my argument ignores the unequal power relationships between the researchers and the researched, and falsely presents ethnographically informed works as helping to democratize knowledge production.

While it is true that power dynamics always exist, there are ideas that we can borrow from anthropology to alleviate the risks. Reflecting on one’s positionality with respect to one’s interlocutors, often with humility as to the limits of one’s ability to understand others, is central to most contemporary ethnographic works.45 Following up with interlocutors also matters. Other methods include letting one’s interlocutors speak for themselves, e.g., see Section I above for Duneier’s method of having his interlocutor write an afterword for the book. Admittedly, none of these measures will eliminate all power asymmetries, but they are important first steps to demonstrating respect and democratizing knowledge production.

In short, this section shows that engaging in ethnographically informed research can be a particularly well-suited first step to demonstrating democratic respect, as it shapes how theorists relate to the people they write about and uses thick description to incorporate the voices and perspectives of our interlocutors in academic knowledge production.

III. CREATING MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING THROUGH THICK DESCRIPTION

While the last section discusses the ways in which ethnographic sensibility enables researchers to demonstrate democratic respect to people we theorize about, this section focuses on how ethnographically informed political theory can improve mutual understanding between citizens, by demonstrating the agencies and explaining the perspectives of other citizens through thick description. This promotes empathy for people with different political views, which is found to inspire people to think more reflectively about politics.46 As such, political theory does not just theorize about democracy, but can itself be a direct contribution to a more democratic culture.

Through thick description of why people act the way they act, ethnographic sensibility helps explain these people’s perspectives and demonstrate their agency, thereby exploring the possibility of common concerns, creating the basis for empathy, and opening up new avenues for mutual trust. This is especially important for divided societies where different social groups become decreasingly capable of showing empathy to others. Arlie Hochschild’s Strangers in Their Own Land serves as a good example of the democratic values of ethnographic accounts. Setting out to understand why people in the American South vote against their economic and environmental self-interests, Hochschild – a liberal academic from Berkeley – embarked on a five-year ethnographic journey, living in Louisiana with Tea Party supporters to understand their perspectives and how they feel about politics. Her thick description of the lives and emotional standpoints of her interlocutors demonstrates the challenges faced by the interlocutors and their attempt to overcome those challenges. Through Hochschild’s gaze, readers can see the Louisiana Tea Party supporters’ agency even though they might not agree with their views. Louisiana Tea Party supporters suffer from structural injustices which may inform their way of thinking. But they are not the ‘selfish, tough, cold people’ that Hochschild expected as she re-read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged in preparation for her journey; instead, she found that ‘[m]any of the Tea Party people I met seemed to me warm, intelligent, generous’ people who care about their community.47

Part of the aim of Hochschild’s book is to climb or overcome – as well as to lead her readers to overcome – the ‘empathy wall’, the ‘obstacle to deep understanding of another person, one that can make us feel indifferent or even hostile to those who hold different belief’.48 For Hochschild, ‘Our polarization, and the increasing reality that we simply don’t know each other, makes it too easy to settle for dislike and contempt’.49 But ‘in the end, a healthy democracy depends on a collective capacity to hash things out. And to get there, we need to figure out what’s going on’.50 In portraying the ‘deep story’ underlying her interlocutors’ feelings to her readers, Hochschild’s writing contributes to exactly that democratic agenda: to hash out the stories of the American Right, to promote mutual understanding rather than settling for contempt. In letting the readers understand the story of Louisiana Tea Party supporters, Hochschild’s book also provides room for democratic theorizing: Tea Party supporters have disdain for government welfare, as it conflicts with their pride and their emotional well-being. That is important when, for example, deciding how to phase out the coal and oil industry: Should the focus be on providing better unemployment benefits? Or should it be more about establishing alternative industries and allowing former coal workers opportunities to transition towards a way of life that is environmentally sustainable but does not undermine their pride and need for self-reliance?

Ethnography can also encourage citizens to understand the political actions of other citizens beyond why they vote the way they do. Consider Polletta’s Freedom is an Endless Meeting.51 Polletta demonstrates why movement actors in American experiments in participatory democracy in the twentieth century organized the way they did. Through quoting many of her interviews with social movement leaders and letting them speak for themselves, she demonstrates that the adoption of participatory democracy in movement organizing is not mere utopian thinking, but that there are important strategic reasons to adopt these organizing methods, e.g., to promote a sense of solidarity and commitment. This helps those who are originally dismissive of the movement to attain better understanding of the actions of those activists, to see them as democratic agents who have a theory of change and are working under practical constraints.

This democratic benefit is most important for ‘crossover’ books (academic research that has an appeal to a wider audience and is written in a way that can be understood by non-specialists) or public philosophical writings. While many existing political theory papers are written purely for an academic audience, there are calls for creating accessible philosophy that can help non-academics make sense of the political sphere. I concur with these calls and see it as important that political theory writings not only are accessible to non-academic audiences but also contribute to a more democratic public sphere.

Understanding the democratic values provided by the ethnographic lens also helps us set a standard with which to evaluate ethnographically informed theory: whether these theories make good use of thick description in putting forward the voices of and the circumstances faced by their interlocutors, allowing readers to apprehend their perspectives. Both the perspectives of the interlocutors and contexts upon which these perspectives are formed should be well-manifested in the writing. Specifically, the writing should demonstrate these clearly to the readers through thick description, to allow readers engage in perspective taking of others. By doing so, our knowledge of others in our society will be less restricted to the enclave of like-minded people we meet; through reading thick description of the lives and perspectives of others, we vicariously acquire some of their perspectives.

Here, one might object: better understanding can lead to less trust and empathy, or even further polarization. In this sense, bringing attention to the viewpoints of some interlocutors can increase, rather than decrease, mistrust between citizens and make it harder to climb the empathy wall. In other words, does ethnographic writing always serve a democratic function?

There is more than one notion of ‘trust’ at hand: it is true that ethnographic writing is unlikely to lead liberals to trust Hochschild’s interlocutors to make good political decisions, but there is a sense in which there is less mistrust when members of the society have a better understanding of why others make different political decisions. This is especially true when the alternative is seeing others’ political decisions as a black box that cannot be made sense of, or misinterpreting their motivations or abilities (and feelings of contempt might follow). Since the ethics of doing ethnography involves understanding and presenting the perspectives of one’s interlocutors, ethnographic sensibility often involves looking beyond surface differences, uncovering reasons that might explain why our interlocutors act the way they do, and discovering some common groundings or shared values. For example, even though many liberals will disagree fundamentally with Hochschild’s interlocutors on political issues, we can still discover that Hochschild’s interlocutors have characteristics and values that liberals also appreciate.

The distinction between these two kinds of trust also helps us differentiate the benefits of empathy in ethnographic sensibility from the benefits of standpoint theory. On one hand, the benefits of having different epistemic standpoints (not just a dominant one) lie in improving the sphere of knowledge (i.e., epistemic benefits). This positive recognition of certain individuals or groups’ standpoint as an important source of knowledge is a manifestation of trust in the first sense (appraisal). On the other hand, the benefits of using ethnographic writing between people who hold different beliefs (e.g., American liberals and the American Right) do not require treating their view about how politics should work as correct. Instead, the benefits lie in using ethnographic writing to allow members of the society to have a better understanding of why others make different political decisions. This is a manifestation of trust in the second sense, that is, a recognition that others are acting on an understandable set of beliefs (even though one might disagree with those beliefs).

In short, by facilitating mutual understanding through demonstrating the contexts upon which different groups formulate their views and practices, ethnographically informed theory can contribute to democracy both in its outcome (building the groundwork for our society to become more democratic) and in the form of engagement it exemplifies.

IV. WHETHER AND HOW TO ADOPT AN ETHNOGRAPHIC SENSIBILITY

So far, this article has set out an under-explored role of ethnographic sensibility, that it acts as a democratic praxis that both demonstrates democratic respect to our interlocutors and improves democratic conditions of the larger society. This democratic praxis is particularly important for projects that theorize about the practices of specific agents as well as writings that intend to reach a wider (not purely academic) audience.

As mentioned in Section I, while an ethnographically informed project often involves participant observation fieldwork, it may also include research that adopts other methods, as long as it shares the commitment to proximity and an ethnographic way of writing, e.g., relational interviewing, historical or archival ethnography, co-production of research. How should those who are interested in adopting an ethnographic sensibility think about the choice between these different methods? This section completes the call for more ethnographic sensibility by shedding light on how scholars who might be interested in adopting an ethnographic sensibility should think about the choice between different methods that fall under the spectrum of ‘ethnographic sensibility’, and what some of the countervailing considerations are.

Whether direct experience is important for attaining proximity: Participant observation fieldwork may allow researchers to have a more in-depth understanding of the practice they study and to put themselves in the shoes of interlocutors. Consider Zacka’s When the State Meets the Street: Given his focus on how discretion is exercised by street-level bureaucrats, which is much easier to understand through direct observation, this project is particularly well-suited for participant observation fieldwork.52 This helps demonstrate respect to street-level bureaucrats by taking into account their experiences and difficulties, and helps promote mutual understanding (by allowing the public to better understand their challenges).

When theorizing about concepts that members of the public use (whether they consciously reflect about those concepts or not): Relational interviewing can allow researchers to learn from members of the public and better understand political concepts they use. For example, Schaffer uses ordinary language interviews to understand what people in a Filipino community understand by ‘democracy’.53 This demonstrates respect to the community, by accepting their usage as a way of understanding ‘democracy’ and promoting this understanding in the academic sphere, instead of implying that democracy can only be defined by academic elites. It also promotes mutual understanding in the society, by allowing those outside the community to better understand why the Filipino community understands democracy in this way.

When unfolding the complexity of historical events: Historical or archival ethnography enables researchers to reconstruct historical events in a way that unfolds the complexity of the event, often with the benefit of hindsight. For example, Vaughan’s Dead Reckoning explores the complex work of air traffic controllers and the case of September 11, 2001, through a historical ethnography.54 By showing the perspectives of air traffic controllers, it demonstrates democratic respect to them. By showing the complexity of their workplaces, it enables the rest of the society to better understand the pressure and environment they work within. Of course, Vaughan’s work is about recent history, and many of her interlocutors are still alive. For less recent historical events, demonstrating democratic respect could become less relevant.

When the interlocutors are often silenced or misunderstood: Methods that include interlocutors in (at least part of) the production of the research (e.g., letting them write an epilogue for the project or even throughout the entire research process, i.e., ‘co-production of research’) could be especially suitable for projects involving (potential) interlocutors whose voices are otherwise muted or often misunderstood in the academic or public sphere. Such methods can demonstrate democratic respect to the interlocutors by letting them be involved in academic knowledge-production. It can also promote mutual understanding by helping the readers better understand the perspectives of the interlocutors. In times of political polarization when mutual understanding is lacking, letting silenced or misunderstood agents be involved in knowledge production can be especially important.

However, the democratic relevance of different ways of engaging in ethnographic sensibility must be weighed alongside other considerations. Feasibility matters. ‘Access’ can be difficult: for example, participant observation might be impossible for projects that theorize about prison. Other constraints include time, finances, and resources. Another important consideration is the risks some methods might carry to our interlocutors. For example, relational interviews with activists in authoritarian settings could risk facilitating regimes’ prosecution of those activists. Some risks can be mitigated through measures to safeguard the confidentiality of our interlocutors. But other risks remain, e.g., a court could ask the researcher to testify.55 Transparency is not always desirable, nor does ethnographic sensibility always constitute a moral praxis.

In short, the choice of which method of ethnographic sensibility, if any, a researcher should adopt depends on many considerations. While attaining proximity and demonstrating the perspectives of our interlocutors are important, we must exercise care in approaching it.

V. OBJECTIONS AND REPLIES

This section considers two important objections theorists might have about democratizing political theory through ethnographically informed research. Some might worry that expressing democratic values through fieldwork could conflict with the more important goals of political theory, i.e., to produce unbiased theory critical of the status quo. Others might wonder, if we open up what counts as political theory (as many suggest we should), then political theory is already attuned to ethnographic sensibility; thus, some might question whether my account relies on an (overly) restrictive definition of political theory. I address each objection in turn.

A. Overly Deferring to the Perspectives of Our Interlocutors?

Some might argue that neither expressing democratic respect to the subjects of our research nor improving democratic pre-conditions are the primary goals of political theory. Rather, political theorists should remain critical of the status quo and produce unbiased theory. Some might worry that ethnographic sensibility could require political theorists to overly defer to the perspective of our interlocutors and fail to critically analyze their perspective and viewpoints.

While I agree that political theorists should be critical, I do not see democratic respect as requiring over deference to our interlocutors. We treat other political theorists with respect by taking their arguments seriously. I believe similar standards apply to our interlocutors: we respect them by taking their voices and practices seriously. That means identifying the circumstances upon which these practices arise, their strengths and challenges, and theorizing from it.

Still, one might wonder: how can we guard against excessive deference to problematic perspectives? One might pay attention to differences in perspectives between the interlocutors in the field site. Even in a relatively homogeneous field site, differences exist. For example, in my fieldwork with a climate activist group, even though members of the group share the same practice, they disagree on its meaning, interpretation, etc. Attending to differences within the field site can help us be more attentive to the limitations of each perspective.

Yet, one might worry that this is not enough. Field sites have power dynamics; sometimes the loudest voice prevails and silences the voices of the less powerful. This brings us to what attending to less observable differences within the fieldwork requires of researchers. Sometimes, it means attending to silences in the field and interpreting whether those silences could imply quiet dissent. Other times, researchers should create circumstances where the quieter interlocutors feel safe to speak, e.g., talking to them in private.

B. Is Political Theory Already Attuned to Ethnographic Sensibility?

In recent years, many political theorists have advocated for expanding the definition of ‘political theory’.56 One might wonder: if we open up what counts as political theory (e.g., to embrace various social theorists, design theorists and others as political theorists), then is political theory already attuned to ethnographic sensibility? In other words, it seems that I need to either resist this call for expansion (and define political theory sufficiently narrowly that political theory is not attuned to ethnographic sensibility) or refine the call for political theory to be more attuned to ethnographic sensibility.

In response, I think there are two concepts of ‘political theory’ in place. On one hand, we have political theory as ideas, speeches, and writings that are rich in foundational theoretical issues in politics. On the other hand, we have political theory as writing that is recognized by the discipline as political theory (e.g., what prominent political theory academic journals publish). Whereas the former defines political theory based on the substantive content, the latter defines it based on field or discipline recognition. What I am advocating is that academic political theory needs ethnographic sensibility, while acknowledging that many people (including both scholars in other disciplines and non-academics) have ideas that are rich in foundational theoretical issues in politics and should be taken seriously. Indeed, I see the call to expand political theory and the call for academic political theory to be more ethnographically informed as complementary. Precisely because many people outside the discipline of academic political theory have ideas that are rich in foundational theoretical issues in politics, incorporating their views is important for creating more grounded academic political theory.

VI. CONCLUSION

How can political theorizing better align with the democratic values that many of us are committed to? This article argues that ethnographic sensibility constitutes a democratic praxis.

First, ethnographic sensibility helps demonstrate democratic respect to the individuals or communities we theorize about, to show that their voices and practices matter to us, that their perspectives are worthy of inclusion in the sphere of academic knowledge production (regardless of whether we agree with them).

Second, by explaining why people act the way they do, ethnographic style of writing can help improve mutual understanding between citizens, improving the preconditions for a well-functioning democratic society. This is especially important for today’s increasingly polarized societies, where distrust between people with different political views is common.

In these two ways, ethnographic sensibility helps ‘democratize’ political theorizing: we can theorize about democracy through democratic means (through the inclusion of voices of different agents) and, at the same time, help advance democracy by creating grounds for mutual understanding (through thick description of why different agents act the way they do, and the circumstances upon which they act).

Notes

  1. Mansbridge 1980, pp. x–xi. [^]
  2. See: Ackerly et al. 2024; Shapiro 2002; Longo and Zacka 2019. Cf. Wolin (1969, p. 1080) notes that most important political theories were a response to crisis in the world, e.g., Burke and Paine to the French Revolution, Tocqueville and Marx to the events of 1848. [^]
  3. See: Rubenstein 2015; Zacka 2017; Herzog 2018; Longo 2017; Blajer de la Garza 2019. Ethnographic approaches have also been adopted by scholars that locate themselves (or are located by others) as belonging to disciplines that are not political theory but produce works that are rich in implications for political theory. See, for example: Graeber 2013; Tracy 2010; DiSalvo 2022; Smith 1987; Collins 1990/2000; Rose 1994. [^]
  4. Shapiro 2002; Schwartz-Shea and Majic 2017; Herzog and Zacka 2019; Longo and Zacka 2019. [^]
  5. Ackerly 2020; De Shalit 2020. [^]
  6. Rubenstein 2015; Zacka 2017; Herzog 2018; Longo 2017; Blajer de la Garza 2019. [^]
  7. Schwartz-Shea and Majic 2017. [^]
  8. Malinowski 1922/1961, p. 25, emphasis in original. [^]
  9. Geertz 1973. [^]
  10. Schatz 2009. While ethnographic sensibility does not necessarily require engaging in original (or first-hand) ethnographic fieldwork like participant observation and interview, many ethnographically informed theorists choose to engage in fieldwork and use their ‘particular hermeneutic vantage point acquired through professional specialization in moral and political philosophy’ to ‘unlock new areas of significance’ (Longo and Zacka 2019, pp. 1069–70). [^]
  11. Longo and Zacka 2019. [^]
  12. Mansbridge 1980. [^]
  13. Cf. Flikschuh’s (2014) idea of ‘philosophical fieldwork’, which is about reading the works of scholars from different cultural backgrounds. [^]
  14. Schatz 2009; Longo and Zacka 2019. [^]
  15. Fujii 2017, p. 6; Schaffer 2014. [^]
  16. Esler 2017; Decker and McKinlay 2020. [^]
  17. Duneier 1999. [^]
  18. Sometimes, methods that include one’s interlocutors in the production of the research do not involve an ethnographic style of writing. [^]
  19. Isaac 1995; 2003. By ‘historically informed’, Issac means informed by the trajectory of historical events and their meanings (cf. informed by the history of political thoughts). [^]
  20. Carens 2004. See also Carens’ (2013) ‘political theory from the ground up’. [^]
  21. Waldron (2016, p. 20) hopes to reorient political theory towards the study of political institutions. [^]
  22. Fishkin (2018) conducts ‘deliberative polling’ to study deliberative politics. [^]
  23. Bagg 2024. [^]
  24. Shapiro 2002; Schwartz-Shea and Majic 2017; Longo and Zacka 2019; Herzog and Zacka 2019. [^]
  25. Zacka 2017. [^]
  26. Longo 2017. [^]
  27. Mansbridge 1980. [^]
  28. Mahmood 2005; Longo and Zacka 2019. [^]
  29. Shapiro 2002, pp. 596–97. See also: Ackerly 2000; Ackerly et al. 2024. [^]
  30. Ackerly 2020; De Shalit 2020. There is also a related set of literature raising concerns about undemocratic power relationships in contexts like transnational altruism and vaccine justice: see, for example, Ana Tanasoca and John Dryzek (2021; 2022). [^]
  31. De Shalit 2020, p. 4. [^]
  32. Ackerly 2020, p. 405. Note that Ackerly does not see ethnographic sensibility as necessary nor sufficient to address this problem. Her solution is ‘grounded normative theory’. [^]
  33. Darwall 1977, p. 38. [^]
  34. Kant 1959/1785 p. 428. [^]
  35. Anderson 1999; Scheffler 2003; Kolodny 2023. [^]
  36. Przeworski 1999; Schumpeter 1942. [^]
  37. Kolodny 2014, pp. 299–300. See also: Kolodny 2023; Wilson 2019; Viehoff 2014. [^]
  38. This is what Erin Pineda (2021) calls treating activists as theorists of their own. [^]
  39. Laurence 2021. [^]
  40. Note, however, that I am not arguing that ethnographic sensibility is the only way to demonstrate respect; nor am I claiming that political theorists that do not adopt an ethnographic sensibility are always democratically respectful. [^]
  41. Wolff and de Shalit 2023. They do not call their method ‘ethnographic sensibility’, but their method of philosophical conversation appears similar to relational interviewing. [^]
  42. Luhrmann 2010 p. 142. Luhrmann’s work might be classified by many people as anthropology, not political theory. That said, his work is still useful in showing how ethnographically informed research demonstrates that the views of people matter. [^]
  43. Luhrmann 2010, p. 155. [^]
  44. Mansbridge 1980. [^]
  45. Here, it is important to acknowledge that ethnography has had a complicated relationship with relational values: historically, anthropology and ethnographic fieldwork were devices for colonists to learn about colonial subjects, in order to make governance possible (Luggard 1922). But as the field of anthropology has developed, precisely because of this historical burden, the field has become committed to developing itself as a site for postcolonial critique. Respect and relational equality have become central to the practice of conducting ethnographic fieldwork (Lambek 2024). Professional guidance on good practices requires ethnographers to treat people as interlocutors, as equals that we must respect and learn from, and not as mere research data. This aspect is emphasized in the ethnographic turn in political science. [^]
  46. Muradova 2026. [^]
  47. Hochschild 2016, p. 57. [^]
  48. Ibid., p. 5. [^]
  49. Ibid., p. xii. [^]
  50. Ibid., p. 8. [^]
  51. Polletta 2002. [^]
  52. Zacka 2017. [^]
  53. Schaffer 1998. [^]
  54. Vaughan 2021. [^]
  55. There are legal consequences for refusal to testify. In 1993, Rik Scarce, a doctoral student in sociology at Washington State University, was imprisoned on a charge of contempt of court for his refusal to testify about break-ins by animal-liberation activists at university laboratories (Monaghan 1993). [^]
  56. For example, Dryzek, Honig and Phillips (2008) and Delanty and Turner (2011) note that political theory has become increasingly diverse and pluralistic. Others, including Pineda (2021) and Inouye (2022), go further in calling for activists to be embraced as political theorists. [^]

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Charles Beitz, Alan Patten, and Anna Stilz for invaluable written feedback on this article. I presented an early version of this article at the ECPR General Conference 2025 and at Princeton, and I would like to thank the audience for their insightful feedback (especially my discussant, Nahshon Perez). For helpful conversations about ethnographic sensibility more broadly, thanks to Yuna Blajer de la Garza, Anna Closas, Patricia Fernández-Kelly, Matthew Longo, Jane Mansbridge, Jennifer Rubenstein, Lynnea Shuck, and Bernardo Zacka. I am grateful to Robert Goodin and the three anonymous reviewers for their feedback, which significantly improved the article. My fieldwork was funded by the Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice at Princeton University.

COMPETING INTERESTS

The author declares that she has no competing interests.

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