These ethnographic essays by scholars in anthropology, law, political science, folklore, public administration, medicine, and linguistics show contemporary connections between liberal democracy and ethnography. Each perspective explores a modern democratic site -- courts, classrooms, legislatures, the media, academic professions, and bureaucratic routines.Together, they expose a contradiction -- that official constructions of identity treat "differences" as both natural characteristics of individuals and the collective basis of interest groups. This contradiction hampers liberal states' efforts to acknowledge and accommodate the cultural diversity of citizens. They also show that official categories do not monopolize the available terms of understanding and identification, given the richness and flexibility of people's self-identifications outside official spheres. This recognition implies an ethnographic project at the heart of democratic change.