The work of response in ethnography

The author uses the concept of "response" from literary criticism to examine the work of response in an ethnography with a group of older, white southern women in her hometown. Employing this concept from another discipline, she identifies two different kinds of response data produced in her study. The first is "member-check" data that she found disappointing-her participants did not convince her that she had "got it right." The second is "imaginary" response data, produced as she imagines an audience's response to her work and as people respond to the study they imagine she is conducting. She describes why the ethics of response leaves her hesitant about writing an ethnography that claims to be the final representation of the women and their culture.