Political Activist as Ethnographer

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Abstract
This paper is a discussion of the reflexive-materialist method of doing sociology proposed by Dorothy E. Smith. It recounts and discusses two studies using this method that set out to examine the social organization of a ruling regime: one involved a study of the policing of gay men in Toronto; the other was concerned with investigating the management of the AIDS epidemic in Ontario. The paper sets out the distinctive features of Smith's method of work and examines its application in doing a sociology for those who are located outside a ruling regime. The paper examines the ethnographic work of a political activist that is designed to provide a scientific basis for the political strategy of grass-roots community organizing. Starting from local, particular settings in the everyday world, the work of the activist ethnographer is to extend his or her member's knowledge to grasp how a ruling regime works with a view to transforming it.

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