Abstract
This chapter is based on reflections about the various kinds of explanatory work that I had to do with various stakeholders to legitimise and negotiate studying end-of-life care in England ethnographically. By examining the responses I received, I comment on how this explanatory work and framing shaped what I could ultimately study, the knowledge that could be produced, and my relationship to the project. Ultimately, this chapter invites ethnographers to be reflexive about the ways we position our methodological stances and ourselves as researchers within health-related fields and how this constructs our subjects of study.
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Notes
- 1.
I used the term ‘to follow ’ to describe the longitudinal element of the study, reflecting both the traditional trope for ethnographic fieldwork whilst also being imprecise as to what following means as a method (both practically and analytically as my study also ‘followed’ choice ).
- 2.
Some anthropologists are renowned for attempting to retain authority over what ethnography is and can be, even at the risk of marginalising new approaches to doing ethnography, particularly interdisciplinary projects and research in ‘Western’ countries (see critiques in Rabinow et al. 2008).
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Acknowledgements
The project that this chapter is based on was funded by the NIHR CLAHRC for Peterborough and Cambridgeshire. I’d like to thank all the various project stakeholders who have made this ethnographic project possible. Time to participate in the workshop that led to this chapter and to write this chapter was funded by the Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness. I’d like to thank the other workshop participants for their insightful comments and the editors for their useful feedback on earlier drafts. I would also like to thank all the research participants who made this project possible.
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Borgstrom, E. (2018). Using an Ethnographic Approach to Study End-of-Life Care: Reflections from Research Encounters in England. In: Garnett, E., Reynolds, J., Milton, S. (eds) Ethnographies and Health. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89396-9_5
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