Du succès multidisciplinaire de l’ethnographie. Eléments d’une évolution et perspectives pour une ethnographie des mondes contemporains

This paper bases its argument on the observation of the current success of the ethnography within the multidisciplinary education research. Such a success, like a kind of fashion, arouses lots of questions and as it can be significant, it imposes the discipline to get reflexivity on itself. Moreover, such an expansion of the ethnography generates a diversity of applications that do not help to understand what an ethnographic process is. In the light of the current research context and of the recalling of the scientific ethnography conditions, we underline the wealth of this method applied to our contemporary societies that allows avoiding the withdrawal on the methodological orthodoxy. By this way, we bring to light some snags related to some orthodox applications, sometimes unsuitable, such as the totalizing creation of unities spatiotemporally isolated that are not easily defensible in our multiple interdependence societies. On the base of our own research with young students, we try to extract some suggestions for an ethnography of the contemporary worlds: multi-scale ethnography and ‘multiple-voices narrations’.