Asymmetry in Ethnographic Fieldwork

Abstract

Traditional ethnographic research methods employed in the case study in this book are well documented. This chapter, therefore, documents the asymmetries in team members’ data generation methodologies and practices and their different materialisations. It describes the methods employed in the study, focusing on the differences that emerged organically through practice, and how the study benefited from this divergence. First, it documents further detail about the logistical differences in fieldwork between the team members. Second, it covers how fieldwork notes were written and typed up and how this changed during the study, and how various visual methodologies were used to generate photographs, sketches, maps and digital videos, and quantitative methods used by one team member. The chapter contains visual representations of these methodological practices and their outcomes, which emerged from team members’ developing fieldwork sensibilities, shaped by their professional expertise, skill and experience and inflected by gendered ethical issues. This includes photographs, simple annotated sketches, scans, and examples of collected documents to give a sense of how differently each team member conducted fieldwork and what these differences produced. Finally, the chapter introduces visual assemblages as an innovative fieldwork and analytical research methodology.