James Spradley

Who was James Spradley?

James P. Spradley was a professor of Anthropology at Macalester College from 1969. Spradley wrote or edited 20 books on ethnography and qualitative research including Participant Observation and The Ethnographic Interview. In The Ethnographic Interview, Spradley describes 12 steps for developing an ethnographic study using ethnosemantics. This book followed his 1972 textbook The Cultural Experience: Ethnography in Complex Society. He was a major figure in the development of the "new ethnography" which saw every individual as a carrier of the culture rather than simply looking to the outputs of the great artists of the time.

He died of leukemia in 1982.