WP232 Founding concepts: Sapir and Simmel on ‘communication’

Building on lecture notes from a course on the ?Ethnography of Communication?, this paper uses a close reading of two classic texts to establish some fundamental principles for the study of communicative practices in their social context(s), connecting the insights and aper?us of two early observers of modern life, Georg Simmel and Edward Sapir, to the practical concerns of novice ethnographers in 2017.