Learning from Henry Mayhew

Abstract

The almost forgotten ethnographer, Henry Mayhew, is shown to be of methodological relevance to contemporary ethnography in the context of current hesitations, doubts, and rejections of “realist” ethnography. Through invoking Adam Smith's concept of the impartial spectator and applying it to Mayhew's textual practice of ethnography, the article seeks to find a way between the entrenched polemical positions called realistic and poetic ethnography. This is done, however, by describing an appealing working model rather than engaging in epistemological prescription.