Methodology, theory and partitions

One of my fieldwork notebooks in the field (it was beautifully covered by a friend)

I do not hate writing about methodology. However, I usually have a strong preference for using theoretical work which speaks to research methodology, rather than work based on explaining methodology. My work in my first year of candidature was partly focused on Bourdieu, which makes such an approach very easy. My shift in focus to Rancière also allows me to continue this sort of ‘theory wrap around’ approach, whereby I can use the same ideas to unpack my methodological practice as I bring to bear on data.

The methodology paper I have been working on slowly has reached the point in a draft where I have to decide if I can repackage my analysis, or if some ideas have to completely go. I have a little bit of Bourdieu (and Wacquant) sitting a little uncomfortably against some Rancière. In some ways this works, they (along with I am sure a multitude of other theorists) allow me to talk about fields or divisions in the order of things.

Such an approach suggests why sharing some of my descriptive reflections directly with groups and through my project blog helped with developing relationships supportive of my work. While I do not know this for sure, perhaps sharing this writing was a way of communicating that I am not in the ‘game’ of trying to seek prestige within the suburb. This may seem like an odd motivation to have, what is so good about being known in a suburb, but I had been asked if I was going to run for local council. I [think I] was able to communicate that I was not interested in taking sides so much as pursue a different type of reflection. Bourdieu can reassure me, and those people who wonder about my intentions, that my field is the university.

However, drawing on Rancière, sharing my reflections also problematised this distinction between my field site and the university. In posing ideas that are supposed to be shared within the university, I assumed that people in the suburb not only had the capacity to understand (which is certainly not a hard thing to assume in my field site) but also that they were not only volunteers or group members, they too engage in social reflection.

As I have probably written before, I am all for a toolbox approach to theory. So using these two French thinkers together for different parts of my paper is possible. However, I am also uneasy about skipping through theoretical work in such a way that I only toss in a reference when it fits what I am saying anyway. Perhaps this is why I am privileging the work of Rancière in my own writing at the moment? There is something attractive about being encouraged to go beyond pointing out how neoliberalism is implicated in how I was able to carry out my project (the premise of my paper) and to as the question,

‘how can we characterize the situation in which we live, think and act to-day?’, but also, by the same token: ‘how does the perception of this situation oblige us to reconsider the framework we use to “see” things and map situations, to move within this framework or get away from it?’; or, in other words, ‘how does it urge us to change our very way of determining the coordinates of the “here and now”?’ (Rancière 2009: 115).

Reminders along the way in field work that I cannot be part of something without changing it

I have been given permission to go to a series of working group meetings in my field site. When I was told that I might be able to get permission, the person making the suggestion raised the issue of whether it would be a ‘conflict of interest’. This person then went on to say, ‘but you cannot be part of something without changing it.’ Whether this suggests that this person had been watching ‘The Nanny Diaries’ recently (I must admit I do not know what happens in most of the movie, but I have seen the last scene when she uses that line at the end of her application to study anthropology), or if it was a line I had used earlier on for why I do not just sit silently in groups (I promise if I did use that line it would have been before I realised it was used in ‘The Nanny Diaries’), I am not sure. However, it is a good reminder that people in my field site do not only know I am doing research, they are also sizing up what sort of research I am doing.

When I first went along to the historical society in the area, one of the volunteers kept bringing out folder after folder of clippings. She had worked out I was interested in living people, and so was showing me the relevant files in their collection. I dutifully created my own record by getting permission to snap photos on my phone as a way of recording what I had seen, but I was much more interested in what was happening around me than what I was looking at. It is not that their files on living people are irrelevant, but I knew that at that state I did not know enough about the social landscape to realise who was being included, and who might be missing.

Over the following months, this volunteer seemed to build up quite a different picture of what I was doing. The volunteer kept me in the loop with what was going on in a range of local activities and occasionally asked me to pass on messages or help with little things to keep certain groups running smoothly. When this volunteer was sick and needed to take a few weeks off, I went some small way towards repaying the favour. Although our understandings were necessary for different reasons, with the volunteer having a strong focus on finding ways to include people who it was judged might benefit from being included and my understandings being employed to undertake a research project, we both needed to understand in order to be able to function in the groups. Our understandings shaped what we did, and so probably altered the experiences that others had of being in the group (whether for better or worse).

I have been changed as a result of engaging in this research. It has not only been a case of ‘growing as a person’ through deepening my awareness of the variety of approaches to engaging with social worlds (or any similar type of wanky explanation I might put on a cover letter for a job application in the future). I have also learnt to be okay with being still and to privilege stopping for a cup of tea over getting the tea cups washed. I am more willing to offer a dissenting view in a group or suggest what I think that a group should do. These changes in how I relate to others probably do not make me a better person to be around, but they have been very useful for developing and testing my understandings, as well allowing me to enjoy being a part of a group rather than just finding satisfaction in getting a job done. Sure being the first one to bound up and take care of the dishes is much less awkward than watching somebody else wait on me, but not only does such action prevent me understanding how things would get done in my absence, I really do enjoy being able to stay there to finish the conversation.

So I change the groups I am a part of and the people who have become part of my life change who I am, but the people who make up the ‘field’ for me are also changing my research project. I think they change it less when they push me towards certain details, such as when the volunteer pulled out those folders of clippings, than when they represent my project to other people. I have become okay with using words with messy academic baggage such as ‘community’ and ‘change’ partly because I see that other people think that it is a good way for other people to understand what the project is about. In offering a necessarily reductionist account to others, they seem to demonstrate something of not just what they want to share but, perhaps more significantly, what they think others will want to see represented.

There is always the chance with social research that you end up writing about what people want to talk about. In many ways, this is not always a bad thing. Furthermore, just as I have to take responsibility for the types of changes I make in the lives I encounter in my field work and how the experience of field work shapes me as a person, what my project ends up being is under my control. I might not have a positive agenda for social change in my research, but I do not mind my values and what I hope for the world will probably play a significant role. It is in my interest to ensure that any conflicts between entertaining stories, getting this project finished and the sorts of changes I am willing to bring about (whether in individual encounters or on a broader scale) are resolved in a manner I can live with.

Eureka! Mike Savage’s Identities and Social Change in Britain since 1940

There is always the temptation to think, ‘Maybe my answer will be in the next book.’ Well, lucky for me (and thanks to my inability to stick to any sort of rhyme or reason in my reading) I came across Savage’s Identities and Social Change in Britain since 1940: The politics of method (2010).

While I came across the reference as part of my scamper through literature related to ‘community studies’, when I plucked it off the library shelf I thought it might be more relevant to the methodology paper I am intending to write. My planned methodology paper is going to look at the rhyme and reason behind my fieldwork successes and failures, looking not only at my limited skills as somebody who is learning to do research or my social position within the field, but focusing on the political and economic dimensions.

However, chapter six of the book is a tour through key players and the disciplinary shifts of British community studies, with attention paid to the move away from focusing on places and towards change on a range of other scales. The discussion of the crossovers between anthropology and sociology is useful for how I understand both my project and myself as a researcher.

Is ethnography like the evil side of Facebook?

While I am a Facebook user, I agree with those people who gets a bit unnerved by what Facebook monitors. Instead of just asking for feedback, they collect the raw data, therefore being able to get past how we would like to represent our internet use and finding out what we really do.

In some ways, types of social research are like this. I am bothering to spend time doing things because it allows me to get a sense of parts of practice and social relationships that people may not put into words if I asked them about the social side of their suburb.

Ethnography is more than just participant observation. There are various types of texts to be consulted and questions to be asked as a thick understanding is pulled together and put forward. Similarly, Facebook asks for feedback through those little crosses you can click to make something go away. It not only tries to work out what you think, but it then tries to check if it is getting it right, and presents you with a type of text in the form of your newsfeed.

There are some interesting differences though. While I tend to assume that Facebook cares so much about developing an understanding of what I do online for the purposes of selling targeted advertising opportunities, social research is generally not so concerned about individuals. While people comment on how ‘creepy’ it is that Facebook collects this information on us as individuals, I do not think I have ever heard anybody describe an internet search engine which works out which webpages are most likely to be of use based on what else links to them. I think we accept that looking at actual practice is useful for developing an accurate picture, but are not so sure that we want any understanding people develop to be used for convincing us to do something else.

The question I am left pondering is whether trying to predict the future plays any role in what is disturbing. Facebook, along with some of Google’s technology, tries to use the understanding of you it develops to predict what you will want to see and do in the future. Through trying to predict the future, it does shape what information you are presented with in your newsfeed and advertising. Applied research is also about predicting the future, but I have a hunch that one of the things humans are pretty terrible at is predicting the future when it comes to the social world.

Do you want to think about ethnography or not?

‘Ethnography forum rage’ was described by one colleague the other day as the usual reaction they have to the monthly informal presentations and discussion.

As one of the angst-ridden ‘hand wringers’ found so frustrating by those people who have the skills to just get on with their research, and as somebody who is not even really doing serious ethnography, I probably should not talk. However, one of the things that means I am becoming rather ambivalent about the ethnography forum is that we seem to act as if the most important thing is to be nice.

Being supportive is important, but who benefits when we sit through papers which have a massive issue at their core and try to salvage it with questions that dance around the edges rather than calling the speaker out? Clearly there is some immediate face saving going on, but surely it would be worse for that person to take their paper to a conference where it will be ripped to shreds? Also, isn’t it a bit embarrassing to fail to engage with issues and errors at a stage in your studies where you are supposedly qualified to begin assisting in teaching and evaluating other students?

One of the strengths of ethnographic methods (although I could cite a bunch of people who disagree with me) is that each researcher gets to reinvent the method for him/her self. Through this process of discovery and growth through a research method, rather than simply operationalising a plan, I think you are able to learn something about your self and the social world that goes well beyond the research question you set out with.

Reflections on ethnographic methods, whether in print or presentations, are very often repetitive and highly personal. The lack of newness is probably a sign that ethnography is onto something, and you learn that thing through the practice itself (nobody complains that maths students learn through doing the same proofs that people have done many times before). That the material is highly personal means a critique of methods is necessarily bound up with comments on the person.

As a ‘hand wringer’, who wastes much of my thinking time while cycling places listing stupid things I said and punches out all these blog posts, I would say I am rather self critical. However, I am not sure how I would deal with honest outside criticism. It seems rather scary that I can get this many years into life and have really had so little critical feedback.

Critical feedback does not mean finding a reason to rubbish everything said, and it does not mean that the person receiving the feedback is rubbish because there is something they have presented which can be looked at in another way. However, a few more verbal confrontations seems to be a good thing, even if they mean you have to agree to disagree over drinks afterwards.

I would like to have the confidence to challenge people to justify why they call their project ethnography. I would also like to challenge people to justify why they think their project should be treated seriously from an ethnographic point of view when it has clearly been designed to meet other criteria (e.g. having a huge number of thin case studies to be taken seriously in another field). I think there is value in hand wringing when it comes to, ‘Am I getting it right?’ However, (I think) people need to get serious enough about dealing with the complexities of the real world to move beyond expecting to be able to be taken seriously as somebody trying to ‘get it right’, when clearly they are trying first of all to be taken seriously in a certain disciplinary, methodological, or policy context.

I am not claiming to be an authority on ethnography and reflecting on research methods, but I think there is a lot to be gained through more rigorous disagreement.

Writing for people in the field

While having a research blog lets me feel like I am putting my ideas out into the world, taking something I have written directly to the people that writing is about and asking what they think in person is proving to be a good method.

When I was trying to explain to a fellow student where I am up to when it comes to my ‘time line’, and why my project still has me talking with people, she seemed a little worried. However, she decided what I was doing is ‘data validation’ and any suggestion of concern evaporated as she declared that it was a good thing.

The couple of times I have taken along a short piece of writing to the group it is about I have found a moment during their coffee break to read it out rather than leaving them a copy to read when they have time. While they seem a bit confused by the interruption at first, and then a little unnerved by hearing something that is quite clearly about them, it is a great way for me to spot some of my own knowledge gaps and get errors in my understanding corrected. I try to include some of the complexities that are a part of even the most well intentioned community group, although the pieces do take on a positive tone because I find the more time I spend with a group the more I like them.

The group members seem to grow more comfortable with being the subject of a piece of writing, and start spotting and telling me things about their group that they think are worth including. Perhaps they also start to censure things that they think I should not write about, but that is their right after all and I am trying to get an understanding of what group members see as important for the functioning of their group. I am not there to write an expose.

My greatest reservation is that so far I have only presented groups with very descriptive accounts. While these accounts do try to highlight the contradictions and in them I connect the group with the wider political economy, I wonder whether the group would be so enthusiastic when the piece is cut up and used to illustrate arguments about the nature of their social world.

Money and research do not mix?

Early on in my project I ended up in a conversation with a shop owner. He described how a while back many of the other shops in the strip were vandalised, however his was left alone. The police came knocking and asked, ‘who do you know?’. If this is exactly what happened or when it was I am still not sure, but it did make me hesitant how much of the commercial side of the suburb I would be able to cover. Clearly there is no ‘typical’ shop experience when it comes with intersections with other social happenings in the area.

 When I was first trying to organise what I would do with my time I tried to approach both shops/ commercial businesses as well as more explicit ‘community’ events. I was intrigued that the businesses attitude towards protecting clients and customers was to say ‘no’ (or rather to say, send me an email and I will get back to you). Not-for-profit groups were often slow to respond, and some have many concerns regarding privacy and accuracy, but these were not surmountable obstacles. I thought perhaps once I had put in some hours in the suburb I might receive a more favourable response from businesses, but this something I have not really gotten far with.

 This is all very interesting, but I have a big problem; I do not know if this has anything to do with the nature of business, or if it is the way I come across to people operating in certain sections of a for-profit world.

 To be fair, cafes and pubs are friendly and the reaction I got from the shop floor staff in the other businesses was usually much more enthusiastic than the (small sample of) managers who said ‘no’. Further more I have heard many reports that traders have jumped at opportunities to meet to discuss the community in the area. So perhaps I am targeting the wrong businesses and so am finding out something about hierarchy rather than something special about the not-for-profit sector?

 Does anybody else have similar experiences or any advice?  Is the absence of these perspectives going to be a major issue when I come to write up?

When research fills a need

I think I was given a bit of a compliment earlier this evening, somebody asked if I was from the country. The person posing the question explained that people from Melbourne are usually more stuck up.

 It was a small encounter but it really made me realise just how crippled my research can be by politeness or my own assumptions about what other people want. Sure, sometimes people want to be left alone, but maybe sometimes people enjoy meeting a stranger and do not mind helping out with a project they will never derive any direct benefit from?

 The next question must be, why do I need to be catering to peoples wants?

 I think this says a lot about me, and not much about my research method more generally. Potentially addressing a research gap is important. However, for me, there is something about having a useful social role that makes it easier to get out of bed (and then pedal through the cold, fog or drizzle) each morning.

Learning to see the differences that matter [and then working out how to talk about them]

One group I spend time with can spot the differences between weeds and what should be there. I've been learning this, SLOWLY.

Lots of people I speak with describe the suburb I am doing my project on as having a “mix” of people living there. I like to find out how the different people

are broken up, which often leads to value judgements being able to be read into the naming of the different groups.

To understand the significance, consequences and interpretations of a concept such as ‘community’ within a suburb requires being able to describe and understand these differences. In order to be able to explore how I should describe and understand these differences means being able to talk about peoples interpretations.

I feel like my project blog is a good place to test out how I think people carve up the social terrain of the suburb. How to do this in a way which does not paint the speakers in an unfairly negative light is something I have not quite worked out. I do not think badly of these people, but I think any critical account can be interpreted as criticism. It is like finding an unflattering photo of yourself on Facebook, it’s what the camera caught in that moment but it doesn’t mean it is the whole picture and you do not have to like it.

Does ethnography put the breaks on applied research?

A chapter I found to be really interesting while putting my project together is, ‘Ethnography and housing studies revisited’ by Adrian Franklin (2008). Franklin argues that ethnography is important in housing studies, but it is mostly undertaken by PhD students – perhaps because it is not usually funded – and the solutions are not funded anyway.

 

Aside from making explicit the share of this work undertaken by (‘in training’) PhD students, this chapter is also likeable because Franklin starts off with an account of a movie I have long wanted to see, Kitchen Stories (2003). This movie is seen as demonstrating ‘that the relationship between researchers and respondents become more productive over time, resulting in more reliable data, better understandings of that millieux and what their problems (and therefore often ‘ours’) actually consist of.’ (Franklin 2008: 272).

 

• If a productive relationship of understanding is to develop, it follows that it would be harder to see any outcome that leaves people worse off in any way that is likely to matter to them. Does this mean it becomes difficult to make any recommendations?

 

‘… whereas extensive approaches merely enable you to understand the distributive nature of an issue, how it is spread across a variety of social and spatial parameters, only methods such as ethnography are capable of investigating and interrogating causal mechanisms (how and why things work the way they do).’ (Franklin 2008: 275).

 

• Once we understand how and why things work in certain ways often change seems even more disruptive. If people are getting on with life then it is unlikely that any part of their context is left as simply ‘bad’. Does this make it difficult to advocate for change?

 

Franklin observes the clustering of articles which use the key terms of ‘housing and ethnography’ around homelessness, elderly in care, and public housing focusing on the racial/ethnic. He draws from this the claim that ‘… when the issue is focused on the care and well-being of (certain groups of) people, ethnography becomes imperative, essential, whereas when housing is seen as a provision of the more abstract idea of service or policy and/or in more concrete terms the supply of (affordable) housing products again to certain types of groups (particularly to poor and underprivileged people) it is less so.’ (Franklin 2008: 279)

 

• Following this, ethnography is unlikely to be popular where governments, NGOs and other parties hope that if they just build things ‘right’ it will be cost effective in the long run. (Not that I am mounting an argument here that is necessarily what is happening in Australia.)

 

Clearly there are many instances where ethnographic research does not lead to policy paralysis. However, what if in my case it does?

 

Franklin, A. (2008). “Ethnography and housing studies revisited.” Studies in Qualitative Methodology 10: 271-289.