---

faculty | home | people | work | events | hyperlinks | help

Email: a.lovatt@mmu.ac.uk

"That's not what I said!": doing ethnographies with yer mates.

We wish to approach our concept of the 'new ethnography' firstly in terms of its practice and then in relation to representation. In the first instance we wish to take some fairly progressive ideas concerning the practice of ethnography to task, and secondly to suggest that the 'voices' of such research must stand on their own terms and not succumb to meta -theoretical manipulation. It should be noted that although the term 'ethnography' has its roots in the anthropological rather than sociological tradition, we consider the manner in which it informs both traditions to be of particular relevance to our argument.

Doing the ethnographic business?

Historically speaking the classic anthropological ethnography was suffused with a sense of the exotic and mysterious, to such an extent, notes Brewer (1994), that readers often had little option but to rely on what was said in the text without recourse to other sources of information. He argues convincingly that this was also the case with regard to the Chicago School, in the 1920s and 30s, who studied snooker players, jazz musicians and gamblers with a similar fascination. Today the 'the margins (of society) are so well mapped and encountered' (ibid. p234) that it is difficult to say anything without somebody wanting to take issue with it. We wish to develop this point later, but here will relate it to various weaknesses within the sociology of popular culture in Britain, specifically the work of the ground-breaking Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS). Focusing on the production of meaning in 'deviant' youth cultures and their relationship to the 'parent culture', the work of Hall and Jefferson (1976 [eds.]), Willis (1978), Hebdige (1979) and others has been of seminal influence on the sociology of culture . However, CCCS is also typical, on three counts, of engaging in the kind of ethno graphic theory and practice which we would like to see less of within the sociology of popular culture.

Firstly and most importantly CCCS can be seen to be following firmly in the tradition of a high modernist sociology. Just as with the 'old' material, the subject and the object of research were separated out quite clearly, and there was never any sense of the researchers being part of a culture surely a crucial point.(7) Secondly, as Muggleton (1994, p.4) notes, there is a heavy structuralist read determinist dimension to the texts, and it is apparent that some authors notably Willis (op cit) are keen to use the research to support their own particular world view (in Willis' case Marxism) rather than letting the voices speak for themselves (Marcus 1986, p.173-88). Thirdly, there is the issue of academic sensationalism to be addressed. Careers can and are made on 'daring research', particularly those focusing on so called 'deviant' cultures. It is important that in the race to publish and satisfy the demands of the educational establishment (both funding bodies and institutions) that these professional motivations should never be held above the needs and desires of those being studied an extension of the first point perhaps.

So, when we come to 'do' ethnographies it is important that these shortcomings are addressed and in turn provide the basis for new ethnographic principles. Even though the problems of doing ethnographies and being participator and academic at the same time have been well documented most impressively in Burawoy et al (1992) there are certain problems which require reassessment. One is the assumption that the ethnographer can rely upon the stable foundational notions of class, community, gender, subculture, tradition and structure in order to reference a particular identity which emerges as a compromise of resistance to and/or incorporation of the larger whole (Marcus, 1992). Subsequently there are few authors who problematize these 'framing assumptions' (ibid) and rise to the challenge of recognizing uncertain and persistently ephemeral conditions let alone place them at the very centre of their work. In part this suggests a 'freeze-dried' methodology, and to illustrate its limitations we will take one fairly contemporary example John Van Maanen's Tales from the Field (1988) and develop this critique.

Our reason for choosing this text is that it advocates a convenient separation of field work from office work; suggesting that 'ethnography as a written product ... has a degree of independence (how culture is portrayed) from the fieldwork on which it is based (how culture is known)' (1988, p.4). There are several assumptions at work here: (a) that the process of doing research fits into a clean ideal type situation where detachment from the field is possible; (b) that ethnography occurs in easily controllable spatial and temporal situations; (c) that the theorizing by the academic is somehow privileged above and beyond what those being studied think about the significance of their activities. Each of these points need clarification.

(a) The complexities of doing research in a post-industrial society, where there is an increasing de-differentiation of work and leisure roles, makes Van Maanen's assertions a little simplistic. This challenge is well documented by Dick Hobbs in his classic ethnography of the London docklands, Doing the Business (1988). Here he expresses the dilemma of writing up field notes obtained with disarming honesty. Often he was uncertain whether to 'write them up or throw them up'. Like Hobbs' relationships with both criminals and the police in the public houses of the East End, almost every researcher engaging in popular cultural fieldwork quickly finds themselves in a series of complex and shifting situations which requires an almost constant interchangeability of roles.

(b) The processes of globalization and 'space time compression' (Harvey, 1989) mean that it is no easy task to simply step outside the research role as though one were simply leaving an island in the Pacific or a working class community in another city from one's own. Obligations established during the research period, mean that distancing oneself from the subjectivities of lived experiences is often simply not possible. It might also be ethically questionable, particularly if the 'research' involves responsibilities such as caring for people, staffing 'helplines' or having a crucial administrative role (Marcus, 1992). In addition research situations can produce a multitude of complicated challenges to the ethnographers ethics, loyalties, even friendships and we would again follow Marcus in arguing that this web of preexisting historic or contemporary connections even auto biographical motives behind a particular project must not be relegated to the footnotes but be foregrounded; woven like a thread through the text and made central to the work produced. In short we feel that the 'I' needs to be constantly identifiable as the author moves with their subjects from one research position to another.

(c) Furthermore, although it may seem tantamount to academic sacrilege, we have to accept that it is perfectly possible for the research 'subjects' to be reflexive to the extent that they can locate themselves in theoretical, historical and political terms. As Mascia-Lees et al (1989, p.9) note on the postmodernist trend in anthropology, the situation is such between researcher and researched that 'the native informant may read and contest the ethnographers characterisations indeed, may well have heard of Jacques Derrida and have a copy of the latest Banana Republic catalogue'. This is almost certainly the case with much of the ethnographic research into popular culture which has emerged from Britain during the last 30 years and certainly true of many contemporary efforts.(8) These situations further reveal the fragility of the pedagogical role of the academic and how even in a highly reflexive and often intellectually equal situation, there exists formal hierarchies in the production and dissemination of knowledge.

Minding your own ethnographic business?

Much of the aforementioned critique of Van Maanen is in keeping with some of the recent debates within anthropology concerning the 'new ethnography' (see Marcus and Clifford, 1986). Since the history of colonialism sits uneasily on the shoulders of ethnographic research within anthropology, in the post-war period there has been something of an at tempt to distance the new tradition from these associations. Instead, there is a desire to understand cultures on their own terms; thus the fundamental goal of the new ethnogra phy is for Mascia-Lees et al 'to apprehend and inscribe 'others' in such a way as not to deny or diffuse their claims to subjecthood' (op cit p.2). The issue of offering a providing space for 'subjects' has therefore become important to many areas of the academic cannon as well as anthropology and sociology.(9) Although still very much in its infancy, a new politics has emerged in these and related fields, one which recognizes that too often aca demic research has been the site for the exercising of a middle class curiosity upon 'the Other' whether 'natives', the working class, deviant groups, or something else for the purposes of improving knowledge and social policy (the benefits of which to the subjects is highly debatable). In this respect it is important for the 'subjects' (sic) to recognize themselves and that the representations remain open-ended enough to provide for amendments or 'notes in the margin', in much the same way as in the development of mediaeval texts. For Marcus this means re-shaping the translation of concepts at the core of realist ethnography:

Perhaps moments of exegesis, of definitions in context would be replaced by the ex posure to moments of dialogue and their use in the ethnographers revision of familiar concepts that define the analytic limits of his or her work, and of anthropological discourse more generally. Such a move would open the realm of discussion of ethnographies to organic intellectuals (to use Gramsci's term) and readerships amongst one's own subjects (ibid, p.320).

It is vital then, that these representations do not get lost in the subtleties and enigmas of the 'new ways of structuring', which Mascia-Lees et al (1989, p.10) argue is a tendency in the new ethnographies (see also Woolgar, 1988).

Furthermore, if we are to get away from the realist ethnography 'based in mimesis' (Tyler, 1986, p.130) and choose like Marcus (1986, p190) to 'evok(e) the world without representing it' then we must avoid the temptation to use the 'voices' of our 'subjects' to justify particular positions that we as privileged polemicists might want to adopt. Willis' book Learning to Labour (1978) though old is a lesson in how not to do this: indicating that the ethnographic technique is merely a means of collecting data he overtly overlays his ideological principles and his critical world view onto the ethnographic environment. Such a technique is really no better than the imperialisms of the classical anthropological researchers.

There is an additional point here which follows along the same political lines that of academic competition. In the process of representation ethnographies must not become the football. For example, the tendency towards more experimental and phenomenological 'tales' has caused concern in some circles (see Porter, 1993) with the call to reintroduce structure via 'critical realism' (i.e. Marxism) back into the ethnographic equation. Regardless of the politics of these perspectives, the crucial point is that in terms of representation of research it is the data which should come first not, academic empire building. This serves to reify the voices still further if they become casualties of what Stanley and Wise (1990, p.46) dub the 'academic three-step', whereby the merits of a particular theory are not judged on their own terms but in terms of the academic's own 'better' standpoint. Any attempt to introduce ethnographic data into the academic snake pit will merely ensure that it is 'the subjects' who get stung.

Part I

Part III

FEEDBACK WELCOMED

Send email to: a.lovatt@mmu.ac.uk