A comment about the readings

So I've been thinking more about the readings and the question of how to read academic writing, and I think the best way to approach it (at least it works well for me) is to always read with questions in mind. That way you are looking for answers rather than just passively reading through the paper.

One source of questions is often found in the subtitles within an article. Maybe it took a long career in publishing for me to realize that those subtitles are the equivalent of entries on an outline, so the article/chapter is structured according to an outline. That means (or it should mean) that each "section" with a "heading" is going to be about the topic contained in the heading. There's the source of your question. For example, in chapter 2 of Hartigan, the heading "ETHNOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVES ON RACE" indicates that he's going to tell you something about that topic. The questions you could be asking are "what does he mean by ethnographic perspective?" "what is that being compared to, if anything?" "what is his opinion about it?" "do I agree with him, and why or why not?"

For the Turner article, ask yourself what perspective the author seems to take, and how is it different from Hartigan's perspective? Are they in agreement in general, or not? What does Turner add to the development of our ethnographic perspective on race and ethnicity?

Let me know if these tips help.