Organizational Ethnography

An Experiential and Practical Guide

Jenna Pandeli, Neil Sutherland, Hugo Gaggiotti, Jenna Pandeli, Neil Sutherland, Hugo Gaggiotti

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000543841
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: R&D
• Index: Business

This textbook explores practices, first-hand experiences and emerging ideas within organizational ethnography, providing a toolkit that prepares ethnographers for the uncertainties and realities of fieldworking.

Students faced with the complexities of qualitative observational techniques and considerations, such as the scope of the research, the personal and professional intertwined life of the qualitative research or the decision of when to leave the field, will find the book an extremely useful, practical guide. A range of experiences from a variety of academics at different stages of their career, to highlight the differences in practices, approaches and encounters, are presented. The themes of the individual chapters cover three main areas: aspects to consider and reflect on before undertaking an ethnography, the process and experiences of conducting ethnographic work and considerations for after the fieldwork. Particular attention is given to appreciating the complexity and practicalities of ethnographic work, providing a more experience-driven text, and understanding perspectives from a range of different approaches to organizational ethnography.

This book should be a recommended text for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students studying research methods within Business and Management. It is particularly important for all students and academics undertaking qualitative research, especially ethnography.

1Outlining a practical, emotional and reflexive approach to organizational ethnography

Jenna Pandeli, Neil Sutherland and Hugo Gaggiotti

DOI: 10.4324/9781003021582-1

First and foremost we want this book to be a practical guide. We want to show readers the real experiences of ethnographers conducting this type of research, particularly as a vast majority of contemporary texts centred on ethnographic work still present it as much “cleaner” than our experiences would suggest. Elements such as gaining access, gathering data, or exiting the field are spoken about as straightforward once-and-for-all events, and it is rare to read of the complexities and dilemmas behind building relationships within communities. Rarer still are insights into feelings of vulnerability and anxiety from ethnographers, which at best obscures an important discussion, and at worst creates the image of ethnographers being all-knowing connoisseurs in the field; and emotionally grounded “ideal-type” individuals. This, for newcomers and experienced fieldworkers alike, is problematic and provides the counterpoint for this book.

We hope to give a raw insight into doing ethnography, but we do not give any objective answers or claim to have solved the illusive mysteries of ethnographic work. We instead offer a rare glimpse behind the curtain. What are the stories that ethnographers do not tell about their process? What about their experiences that were written “out” of their official articles, books and thesis in favour of a cleaner narrative? What is their advice for those embarking into the field for the first time? What about the tales that we fear would expose us as imposters? Did they have specific strategies or did they simply make it up as they went along? How did they cope with the inherent uncertainty of fieldwork? These are the conversations that we have found ourselves having in recent years that have really got to the heart of the experience of doing ethnographic work. Interestingly, whilst there has been a long history of ethnography within the social sciences, particularly anthropology and sociology, the same appetite for this method has not been as strong in Organization Studies (Cunliffe, 2010). Indeed, many Organization Studies PhD programmes do not cover ethnography in the curriculum. We believe that because of this lack of exposure to this approach, some have shied away from ethnography or have felt they needed to conform to (some) institutional views that more “objective” methodological approaches are more rigorous, valid and thus superior. But we have been lucky to have been exposed to forums, research groups, conferences and networks that champion ethnographic approaches and celebrate the emotional, experiential, subjective and reflexive practices that go hand-in-hand with ethnography.

In reading the chapters in this book we hope to provide you with the following:

• An honest look into what it is like to do ethnographic work, written from a range of colleagues, from early career researchers to seasoned ethnographers
• Informal, conversational and friendly writing that guides you through the internal issues that contemporary ethnographers have contended with
• An understanding into the unfolding, messy and chaotic ethnographic process, rather than just the sanitized outcome of the research project
• Advice on how to approach tricky situations – from covert research to difficult conversations to keeping level-headed and analytical in the heat of the field
• Reassurance that as long as you are paying due consideration to your approach, you are probably not doing it “wrong”, and that a plurality of appropriate approaches exist

In this introductory chapter we set about outlining the core philosophy of this book, particularly focussing on the several key intersectional points that are weaved throughout each chapter. First, we discuss the importance of providing practical, real-life insight into undertaking ethnography, and moving beyond only theoretical understandings. Second, we introduce the concept of reflexivity and its central role in ethnography, as well as placing emphasis on the centrality of emotions. Finally, using examples from our chapters, we show how ethical questions are inherent in ethnography, and look to the future and what could be done in creating brave spaces to discuss our experiences of ethnography. Let us start on our adventure. First stop? Defining that elusive term.

Defining ethnography

In writing this introduction, we always knew that we would be forced to undertake the unenviable task of “defining” ethnographic work. Ask any ethnographer to tell you what they do, and you will have a different answer. During our many editorial meetings, where the task was to discuss our esteemed colleagues’ projects, we found ourselves exploring the similar and contrasting ways each author framed and understood the concept of ethnography. Interestingly, the main consistency came from the idea that ethnography is inherently pluralistic, and in this book you will not read about a “one best way”; no magic recipe; no bureaucratic steps to follow; no tick-list to complete. Instead, you will hear about a variety of different styles and forms that are inherently influenced by the context surrounding the project, by the community, by the researcher and by the overall aims. The joy of ethnographic work comes from the idiosyncratic and hyper-specific approaches that individuals have taken, but despite this delightful mixture, there is nevertheless still some value in us attempting to put our fingers on the similarities that underpin these approaches.

Let us start with some words that summarize the Greatest Hits of ethnography definitions – of it being understood as the “study of social interactions, behaviours and perceptions that occur within groups, teams and organisational communities” (Reeves et al., 2008: 512). Whilst this doesn’t quite capture the grit and peculiarity that you will be presented with in this book, it at least gives us a starting point in helping us understand that the task of ethnography is to longitudinally investigate some aspects of the lives of people within a particular community, regarding how they think, act, understand themselves and understand the world (Atkinson and Hammersley, 2007). To do this, ethnographers act as cartographers in creating interpretations and descriptions of human experience within that community – studying events, language, ritual, institutions, behaviours, artefacts and interactions. Cunliffe underscores the importance of context, culture, temporality and meaning-making here by noting:

It differs from other approaches to research in that it requires immersion and translation. Ethnography is not a quick dip into a research site using surveys and interviews, but an extended period time in which the ethnographer immerses herself in the community she is studying: interacting with community members, observing, building relationships, and participating in community life.

(Cunliffe, 2010: 230)

Anthropologists, who are credited for the creation of ethnography as an indissoluble from participant observation, point towards its etymological root (ἔθνος (ethnos), meaning “people”, “nations”, “group of people”, and -graphy, meaning “writing”). Possibly the contemporary anthropologist who most reflected on ethnography as a writing practice has been Clifford Geertz, who asked and answered himself: “What’s does the ethnographer do?…. […] writes” (Geertz, 1974: 19). The analogy to considering ethnography as a literary genre, such as the novel or poetry, could be used to suggest that there is no single way of doing ethnography, just as there is no single way of writing poems or novels.

In fact, classical anthropological research has always recognized the production of two outputs: first, the ethnographies themselves, that is, the writings, testimonies, observations and all kinds of material produced in the field, classified or displayed as the ethnographer wants; second, the analysis of this material, based on the reflections of the ethnographer. The researcher becomes an ethnographer when he/she is in the field, and the literature on organizational ethnography emphasizes that what is experienced in the field must be translated into a coherent text. We quote in extension here to illustrate the point:

The primary and most complex feature of ethnographic writing is to translate ethnographic material (field notes and supplementary data) into an ethnographic text. In order to achieve this translation, ethnographers usually carry out a form of indexing. First, ethnographers need to organize their material into a coherent form. This might involve going through their field diaries of observations to make sure they make senses, transcribing interviews (if they have carried out interviews) and organizing any documents they have collected so that they make sense (that is, the ethnographer understands where they came from and what organizational role they played).

(Neyland, 2008: 126)

As we can see from these early points, we cannot define ethnography as a data collection method (as it is often confused for/as), but rather ethnography is itself the methodology; conceived of as an approach; a way of imagining the social; our relationship with others practices and the way we inquire about it (Gaggiotti et al., 2017), but also the artefact that we produce when experiencing the field. The most common “method” within ethnographic work would be participant observation, which involves “being there” in organizations, hanging out in order to “observe, to ask seemingly stupid yet insightful questions, and to write down what is seen and heard” (Fetterman, 2010: 9). Throughout this, ethnographers “attempt to understand phenomena through accessing the meanings participants assign to them” (Orlikowski and Baroudi, 1991: 98–99). All in all, the intention of participant observation is to get a much richer picture than other approaches might allow for, and throughout this book you will read about the varied experiences of the authors and their encounters, observations, triumphs and challenges when engaged in participant observation settings.

Through this move towards the ethnographic methodology, we see an epistemological and ontological shift. In the case of the former, researchers eschew the search for “objectivity” and instead “practice a reflexive way of knowing the world [they] inhabit in relation to […] others” (Hussey, 2002: 45). Emphasis is placed on relativism and subjectivity, where knowledge (from participants and researchers) is understood as socially organized and constructed, and as a product of specific social, cultural and political environments (Doucet and Mauthner, 2004). Regarding the ontological shift, rather than understanding reality through abstract, generalized and universalistic explanations, researchers instead turn to the “concrete, sensuous world of peoples’ actual practices and activities” (Hussey, 2002: 634) and attempt to understand these specific experiences. In this book, we do not intend to show how ethnography creates generalizable, valid, or “true” knowledge; instead, we embrace the subjectivity. We appreciate Gherardi’s (2018) thoughtful insight into ethnographic research that she describes as “affective ethnography” – ethnography that is performative in style and relies on the researcher’s capacity to affect and be affected in order to produce interpretations that may transform the things that they interpret. This understanding of ethnography moves beyond only understanding what it is that people do but acknowledges a vast array of experiences in the field of both the researcher and the researched. This approach stresses that elements such as texts, actors, materialities, language and agencies are already entangled in complex ways and that they should be read in their intra-actions, through one another, as data in motion/data that move.

Whilst not wishing to enter the murky realm of generating our own quick two-sentence definition, this section has helped to clarify some of the key elements of ethnographic work as you will read about in this book: it being an approach rather than a method, as a way of doing and writing, focused on understanding people, and as something that is inherently subjective that the ethnographer is inexorably weaved within. Putting the magnifying glass on this final point is important, because what you will discover in this book are tales from several ethnographers about their experiences of doing ethnographic work – how they planned their projects, how they experienced fieldwork and how they approached the task of leaving, writing up and discussing their discoveries. Whilst there are a plurality of different voices, perspectives and experiences on display, there are a number of intersectional discussion points that are raised throughout which are essential for our contemporary framing and understanding of ethnographic projects, and will offer you an opportunity to reflect on your own experience. In the remainder of this chapter we will outline some key discussion points that will regularly be returned to throughout the chapters.

Discussion points

What can I do with this advice in this book? How will it help me prepare for an ethnographic project?

Above all, this book functions as a practical guide. However, it is not the typical compendium of recipes and steps you need to follow to conduct a “proper” ethnography. In our experiences of preparing for the field we found that whilst other ethnographic texts offered us considerable knowledge and pointers, there ...