Episode description

The winner of Thinking Allowed's first Ethnography award, in association with the British Sociological Association.

Laurie Taylor and a team of esteemed academics - Professor Beverley Skeggs, Professor Dick Hobbs, Professor Henrietta Moore and Dr Louise Westmarland - set themselves the task of finding the study that has made the most significant contribution to ethnography over the past year. In the past, ethnographic studies have cast light on hidden or misunderstood worlds, from the urban poor in 1930s Chicago to the mods and rockers in British seaside towns in the 1950s. This year they considered submissions of startling range, colour and diversity, in the process learning much about the struggles of the war wounded 'amputees' of Sierra Leone; the ties between mothers and daughters on a working class housing estate in South Wales; the hedonistic excess of young holidaymakers in Ibiza; and the dreams and desires of young women in hostess bars in Cambodia. After much passionate debate, finally the winner can be revealed.

Laurie Taylor presents a programme about the winning entry which, in the judges' view, has made the most significant contribution to ethnography, the in-depth analysis of the everyday life of a culture or sub culture.

Producer: Jayne Egerton.