UDUPA, S.(2026) PROMPT ETHNOGRAPHY: CRITICAL METHODOLOGY FOR GENERATIVE AI

This chapter develops “prompt ethnography” as a critical methodology to scrutinize generative AI. Prompt ethnography employs reflexive interactions with generative models and public controversies around model behaviors as empirical touchstones to draw inferences about why AI models say what they say about politically charged topics, and interrogate the larger structures of power that define the code, content and consternations undergirding model outputs. It is published in the Handbook of Anthropology and Artificial Intelligence (edited by Udupa S. & Hervik P., Edward Elgar)