RESEARCH PAPER Event and Process: An Exercise in Analytical Ethnography Thomas Scheffer Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007 Abstract Analytical ethnography does not presume a principal analytical frame. It does not know (yet) where and when the field takes place. Rather, the ethnog- rapher is in search for appropriate spatiotemporal frames in correspondence with the occurrences in the field. Accordingly, the author organizes a dialogue between conceptual frames and his various empirical accounts. He confronts snapshots of English Crown Court proceedings with models of event and process from micro- sociology and macro-sociology. A range of–more or less early or late, relevant or irrelevant, contingent or predetermined–processual events serves as the vantage point to access event and process relations. In this line, Crown Court proceedings serve as an introductory and exemplary field for analytical ethnography, because they involve both: (strong) events and their process and (strong) processes and their events. Keywords Analytical ethnography Á Process Á Event Á Sequential analysis Á Criminal case Á Pre-trial and trial Á Relevance Á Time Introduction ‘‘Where is the field?’’ is a question only infrequently asked by ethnographers who ‘just’ approach cultures or tribes. 1 Most ethnographical studies, I claim, are carried out as if it were self-evident where, how long, or with whom one should conduct the fieldwork. The same applies for the description of life within the field. Nearly all T. Scheffer (&) SFB 447/Emmy-Noether-Group ‘‘Microsociology of Criminal Trials’’, Free University Berlin, Altensteinstr 2–4, 14195 Berlin, Germany e-mail: Scheffer@law-in-action.org 1 The question is asked by Gupta and Ferguson (1997), Fog and Hastrup (1997), Amit (1999), Abu-Lughod (2000), Behar (2003), etc. 123 Hum Stud (2007) 30:167–197 DOI 10.1007/s10746-007-9055-8