Dr. Brian Foster talking about his work as an ethnographer.
In this short clip, I talk about what it means, in very general terms, to be an ethnographer. For me, it’s about being present, being curious, and being in tune with how and what you notice. It comes with a heavy responsibility—to offer a truthful rendering of life in a place, no matter how that rendering might make you feel. I was trained while earning my Ph.D. in sociology at the University of North Carolina.
My name is Dr. Brian Foster. I’m a writer, ethnographer, and multi-medium storyteller from Shannon, Mississippi. All of my work—books, essays, oral history collections, keynotes, films—centers Black communities in the rural South.