"Ethnography": What's in a Word—Process? Product? Promise?

As a technique for gathering data on human behavior, "ethnography" has become very popular in a wide range of disciplines and fields. Such popularity has its cost, however. While providing valuable insights and depth of knowledge into understanding behavior, the perspective that informed its historical development and provides a continuing intellectual reationale is often dulled through excessive familiarity. This article places the term and the generic idea at its semantic core in the context of its development in anthropology and consequent adoption by other disciplines.