ethnographyn.
/ɛθˈnɒɡrəfi/, U.S. /ɛθˈnɑɡrəfi/ Social Sciences.
1.
a. The systematic study and description of peoples, societies, and cultures.Not always clearly distinguished from ethnology n. 1.
ΘΚΠ
the world > people > ethnicities > race > ethnoscience > [noun]
ethnology1787
ethnography1811
race science1873
ethnolinguistics1920
ethnoscience1956
1811 G. B. Depping Evening Entertainm. I. Pref. p. ii The study of this science [sc. geography], especially of its moral part, which might be denominated ethnography, is not only perfectly compatible with other studies, but [etc.].
1814 Ann. Philos. 3 439 Ethnography makes researches into the origin of peoples, and the smallest tribe is classed apart, provided it exhibits national differences.
1857 T. De Quincey China in Titan Feb. 185/1 The Englishman..of Chinese ethnography has not [a house], except in crevices of marine rocks.
1878 E. Reclus in Encycl. Brit. VIII. 613 s.v. Ethnography embraces the descriptive details, and ethnology the rational exposition, of the human aggregates and organizations.
1925 N. Iorga Hist. Roumania iii. 35 Anthropology and ethnography do not find the Slav type amongst the Roumanians.
1973 C. Geertz Interpr. Cultures i. 5 It is in understanding what ethnography is, or more exactly what doing ethnography is, that a start can be made toward grasping what anthropological analysis amounts to as a form of knowledge.
2005 L. Leblanc Pretty in Punk i. 20 As a research method, ethnography is subjective and ungeneralizable.
b. A description of peoples, societies and cultures, or an individual example of these; a work of ethnography (sense 1a).In quot. a1833 referring to A. Balbi Atlas ethnographique du globe (1826).
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a1833 G. Higgins Anacalypsis (1836) II. v. i. 316 M. Adrian Balbi, in his Ethnography of the Globe, says [etc.].
a1880 E. Guest Origines Celticae (1883) I. v. 153 Classification of peoples according to their colour was evidently a rude attempt at an ethnography which..required a knowledge beyond the reach of these early races.
1918 T. R. Georgevitch Macedonia ix. 129 One of his works is an ‘Ethnography of Macedonia’ written in Russian.
1958 H. B. Hawthorn et al. Indians of Brit. Columbia xxii. 287 The numerous games reported in ethnographies suggest that recreation filled the remaining hours of the child in the traditional culture.
2009 K. Ho (title) Liquidated: an ethnography of Wall Street.
2. The ethnic character or constitution of a place, people, sphere of human action, etc.
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1812 A. Plumptre tr. H. Lichtenstein Trav. S. Afr. I. Pref. p. v I wished to give a regular description of the country, as to its topography, political situation, natural history, and ethnography [Ger. eine Beschreibung, die das Topographische, Politische, das Naturhistorische, Ethnographische..umfasste].
1868 W. E. Gladstone Juventus Mundi (1870) vii. 206 It is in truth a main key to the ethnography of the poems.
1900 F. Starr (title) Notes upon the ethnography of southern Mexico.
1943 C. A. Wood & F. M. Fyfe in tr. Frederick II of Hohenstaufen Art Falconry 608/2 The best work on the ethnography of falconry and the distribution of that sport over the world in all ages.
1963 B. Reynolds Magic, Divination & Witchcraft among Barotse of Northern Rhodesia Pref. p. xv One of the heartening features of working in a colonial territory is the considerable interest that administrative officers take in the ethnography of the people in their care.
2008 T. F. King Cultural Resource Laws & Pract. (ed. 3) iv. 129 Imagine—based on the geography and environment of the area, its history, its ethnography, its prehistory—what kinds of historic properties might be out there.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2014; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1811