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This book reflects on the contemporary use of ethnography across both social and natural sciences, focusing in particular on organizational ethnography, autoethnography, and the role of storytelling. The chapters interrogate and reframe longstanding ethnographic discussions, including those concerning reflexivity and positionality, while exploring evolving themes such as the experiential use of technologies. The open and honest accounts presented in the volume explore the perennial anxieties, doubts and uncertainties of ethnography. Rather than seek ways to mitigate these 'inconvenient' but inevitable aspects of academic research, the book instead finds significant value to these experiences.
Taking the position that collections of ethnographic work are better presented as transdisciplinary bricolage rather than as discipline-specific series, each chapter in the collection begins with a reflection on the existing impact and character of ethnographic research within the author's native discipline. The book will appeal to all academic researchers with an interest in qualitative methods, as well as to advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students.
List of contents
Chapter 1. Introduction; Tom Vine, Jessica Clark, Sarah Richards & David Weir.- Chapter 2. Home-grown Exoticism? Identity Tales from a New Age Intentional Community; Tom Vine.- Chapter 3. Wrestling with Online Avatars: Technology and Sexual Transformation; Paul Driscoll-Evans.- Chapter 4. Chóng ér f i: Cultural Performances of Belonging in Intercountry Adoptive Families; Sarah Richards.- Chapter 5. Ethnographic Practices of Listening; Allison Boggis.- Chapter 6. Discussion and Collaboration in Diagnostic Radiography; Ruth Strudwick.- Chapter 7. Living with Uncertainty: The Ethnographer's Burden; Steve Barnes.- Chapter 8. Managing Dissonance in Identity Construction; Derek Shaw.- Chapter 9. What Makes the Autoethnographic Analysis Authentic?; David Weir & Daniel Clarke.- Chapter 10. Inside the Sausage Factory: An Autoethnography of Working in a For-Profit University; Katie Best.- Chapter 11. An Auto-Ethnographic account of Gender and Workflow processes in a Commercial Laundry; David Weir.- Chapter 12. The Salience of Emotions in (Auto)Ethnography: Towards an Analytical Framework; Ilaria Boncori.- Chapter 13. It's More than Deciding What to Wank Into: Negotiating an Unconventional Fatherhood; John Hadlow.- Chapter 14. Hate the Results? Blame the Methods: An Autoethnography of Contract Research; Will Thomas & Mirjam Southwell.- Chapter 15. Collaborative Autoethnography: Enhancing Reflexive Communication Processes; Ngaire Bissett, Sharon Saunders & Carolina Bouten Pinto.- Chapter 16. Methodology: From Paradigms to Paradox; Tom Vine.
About the author
Tom Vine is a senior lecturer at the University of Suffolk, UK. He leads a suite of MBA programmes at Suffolk Business School where he actively encourages his students to engage with a diverse range of scholarly research beyond the realm of business studies. He is also committed to expanding hitherto marginalised research methodologies in his field. Jessica Clark is a senior lecturer at the University of Suffolk, UK. She is a sociologist publishing in the fields of children's sexual cultures, contemporary boyhoods, children and popular culture and methodological issues in research with children.
Sarah Richards is a senior lecturer at the University of Suffolk, UK, where she teaches childhood and youth studies. She publishes in the field of social policy with particular reference to intercountry adoption policy and adoption narratives. Her recent publications focus on interrogating research methodologies with children.
David Weir is Professor of Intercultural Management at York St John University, UK. He teaches intercultural management and has published widely on organizational culture in the MENA countries and written in a variety of ethnographic styles.
Summary
This book reflects on the contemporary use of ethnography across both social and natural sciences, focusing in particular on organizational ethnography, autoethnography, and the role of storytelling. The chapters interrogate and reframe longstanding ethnographic discussions, including those concerning reflexivity and positionality, while exploring evolving themes such as the experiential use of technologies. The open and honest accounts presented in the volume explore the perennial anxieties, doubts and uncertainties of ethnography. Rather than seek ways to mitigate these ‘inconvenient’ but inevitable aspects of academic research, the book instead finds significant value to these experiences.
Taking the position that collections of ethnographic work are better presented as transdisciplinary bricolage rather than as discipline-specific series, each chapter in the collection begins with a reflection on the existing impact and character of ethnographic research within the author’s native discipline. The book will appeal to all academic researchers with an interest in qualitative methods, as well as to advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students.
