Tone and voice are among the most subtle yet powerful tools in ethnographic writing. Voice is about who is speaking and how they relate to the field; tone is about how the scene feels and how it should be interpreted. Together, they shape how readers understand events and how they perceive your presence—what you noticed, how you felt, what you left out, and why.
Consider how the same situation in a gig economy context can be written in different voices:
- Analytical voice: “Riders averaged 1.3 deliveries per hour during peak times.”
- Participatory voice: “I kept refreshing the app. With every refresh—$2.50 order, decline, refresh, $3.00 order, decline—I watched my ‘acceptance rate’ drop…”
Voice establishes your sustained narrative stance—analyst, participant, witness—while tone modulates the emotional atmosphere of each scene. For example:
- Neutral tone: “Deliveries were prioritized.”
- Urgent tone: “Refresh. Decline. Refresh.” (short, staccato phrasing conveys anxiety or pressure)
Voice is not merely a stylistic decision; it is an ethical and epistemological stance. It shapes whose experiences are foregrounded, how authority is claimed, and what counts as evidence. It signals how you position yourself in relation to those you study—whether as critic, collaborator, or ally. Perspective refers to grammatical position (e.g., first-person “I” or third-person “they”), while voice reflects how that position is inhabited—whether as analyst, ally, or participant.
Sometimes, a single passage combines different narrative roles:
“’They treat us like robots!’ Mateo told me and laughed bitterly while we were both waiting for our delivery orders to be prepared. This reflected the platform’s dehumanization of gig workers.”
Here, the ethnographer appears both as participant (waiting alongside Mateo), as recorder of dialogue, and as analyst interpreting the moment. This layered voice invites readers into the scene while also guiding interpretation. Such shifts between witnessing, participating, and analyzing are a hallmark of ethnographic writing—but they are not neutral. The ethnographer’s voice ultimately mediates whose words count as data and how they are framed.
Tone—whether ironic, reverent, solemn—encodes emotional cues that guide how those perspectives should be interpreted. Take the example of a food delivery worker:
- Reverent tone: “Mateo’s thumbs mapped the app’s betrayals—three declines triggered a ‘timeout.’”
- Ironic tone: “The ‘partner’ platform paid ‘partners’ $2.50—which didn’t even cover gas.”
Tone arises from the rhythms and textures of a scene, while voice is shaped through narrative posture (e.g., stepping back vs. stepping in), syntax, and what is left unsaid.
As you read or write ethnographic vignettes, ask:
- How does the writer position themselves—as analyst, ally, participant?
- What emotional register is conveyed through syntax—resignation, defiance, confusion?
- How do these choices shape the representation of power and inequality?
These choices create an enduring ethnographic persona—your intellectual and ethical stance. For example:
- A critical observer: “The algorithm punished the worker without context, relying solely on customer feedback.”
- A vulnerable participant: “I felt both angry and humiliated when the restaurant owner pointed to the sign: ‘No restroom for delivery drivers.’”
- A collaborative witness: “We decoded the algorithm’s racism together.”
Tone is the emotional resonance of a scene—frantic or reflective, lyrical or spare. When tone and voice are aligned (e.g., a vulnerable voice with an exhausted tone), they build immersive authority. When contrasted (e.g., an analytical voice with ironic tone), they provoke critical distance. A line like “Robots don’t get overtime!” may not require explanation—your voice builds credibility—but tone still shapes how it lands: is it wry, furious, mournful?
Deliberate use of voice and tone enables you to convey the complexity of field encounters—your entanglements, doubts, judgments, and insights—without having to explain them explicitly. Practicing with these tools can transform voice and tone from expressive devices into analytical instruments—tools for conveying power dynamics, positionality, and social critique.
Learning from Creatives
Creative:Italo Calvino
Creation:If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler (1979)
Ethnographic writing often aspires to coherence: a stable narrator, a clear voice, a singular arc. But what if, instead, we embraced disruption, multiplicity, and reflexivity? Creative writers like Italo Calvino offer alternative models for thinking about narrative stance and voice. If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler is a masterclass in narrating from unstable, layered perspectives. In the novel, Calvino fractures the illusion of narrative unity. The novel opens by addressing you, the reader: “You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel...” From the first line, it disorients. Who is “you”? Who is speaking? What kind of authority does this voice hold? The narrative then oscillates between unfinished fictional stories, fragments of invented novels, and metafictional reflections on the act of reading and writing. This shifting frame destabilizes any fixed position for narrator, reader, or character. Throughout the novel, voice becomes a site of play, confusion, and co-authorship. Rather than smoothing over contradictions, the novel dwells in them. It reminds us that all storytelling is partial, situated, and shaped by expectations.
For ethnographers, Calvino’s experimental form is not a template to mimic, but a provocation. It invites us to ask: whose voice is speaking, and when? To what extent does the reader participate in the construction of meaning in ethnographic accounts? What assumptions about authority, coherence, or closure shape our writing? How might uncertainty or disruption be used deliberately—not as a flaw but as a methodological stance?
What does the work reveal about narrative?
Calvino’s work foregrounds the constructedness of narrative. In doing so, it mirrors the ethnographic challenge: to craft accounts that acknowledge the entangled position of the writer without collapsing into self-indulgence. In ethnography, perspective refers to grammatical positioning—first person (“I”), second person (“you”), or third person (“they”). Calvino shows that these positions are not fixed containers but can be strategically inhabited, blurred, and subverted. When the narrator shifts between addressing the reader (“you”), describing fictional characters (“he/she/they”), and reflecting on the act of narration itself (“I”), the reader is made acutely aware of the machinery behind narrative and the illusion of narrative omniscience is dismantled.
Not only the what but also the how
Studying the novel is especially valuable for ethnographic writers, who must continually decide whether to appear as analyst, participant, or witness—and how to inhabit those roles. Calvino demonstrates that narrative perspective can be fluid rather than fixed. It can invite intimacy or distance, irony or sincerity, self-implication or detachment. In doing so, it reorients our sense of what ethnographic authority might look like: not mastery over a story, but careful choreography of entry points and vantage positions.
Voice and tone are similarly elastic in Calvino’s hands. The voice is reflexive, playful, self-doubting. The tone ranges from ironic to melancholic, depending on the narrative thread. As readers, we’re not only absorbing content. The mechanisms of narrative construction are not deliberately obscured from the reader. We’re instead invited to feel the conditions of narrative production. This mirrors what ethnography often seeks: not just to recount what happened, but to convey how it was experienced and how it came to be known.
Which techniques and approaches might be transferable?
Calvino’s novel is a masterclass in unsettling the reader’s expectations while drawing them deeper into a narrative labyrinth. Though fictional, its techniques resonate with ethnographic sensibilities. Take the example of the “you” voice. Calvino addresses the reader directly (“You are about to begin reading...”), collapsing the distance between narrator and audience. Ethnographers might experiment with second-person to implicate readers in a scene’s tensions (e.g., “You accept the $2.50 order, knowing your ‘acceptance rate’ would otherwise drop. What other choice do you have?”). In general, experimenting with narrative perspective can sharpen our ability to convey epistemological stance. A shift from third-person to first-person plural (“we”) may signal solidarity. A move to second-person may draw the reader into complicity. Alternating between “I” and “they” can reveal tensions between participation and analysis. Rather than choosing one perspective, consider how sequencing or layering them might mirror the layered nature of fieldwork itself. The novel also speaks to the notion of fragmented authority. The novel’s interrupted narratives mirror how ethnographers grapple with partial truths and contested accounts. Like Calvino’s truncated stories, field encounters often resist closure, demanding voices that acknowledge incompleteness.
Focus
Explore how narrative tone and voice shape ethnographic meaning.
Learning Goals
- Identify how tone and voice affect ethnographic interpretation.
- Experiment with shifts in tone and narrative stance.
- Reflect on your narrative position in relation to your field material.
Activities
- Close reading of a couple of ethnographic accounts: identify the tone and voice and discuss how they shape the reader’s interpretation.
- Rewrite a short ethnographic passage in two different tones (e.g., neutral and ironic, anxious and detached).
- Group discussion: What ethical or epistemological effects arise from particular tonal or narrative choices?