Abstract
This chapter turns the ethnographic gaze back on the researcher, interrogating the methods and materials used in the production of the ethnographic writing in this book. It reflects on the characteristics of the researcher and the background that make the research carried out more or less effective, biased or slanted in a particular direction. In particular, the intersection of class, culture, gender and personality are explored by comparing the insider/outsider status of the researcher with some of the marginalized informants of the research. This discussion is contextualized in cognate debates in postcolonialism.
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Notes
- 1.
I should clarify that this was not originally a dacha settlement, but a ‘real’ rural settlement which had progressively been taken over by urban dwellers for country cottages.
- 2.
Nancy Ries (1997: 77) presents analogous stories from a woman’s perspective about the sexual dangers projected of consorting with male informants that were impressed on her during fieldwork.
- 3.
Compare Mah’s reflection on ethical issues related to outsider status in three deindustrializing contexts of her research (2012).
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Morris, J. (2016). Intimate Ethnography and Cross-Cultural Research. In: Everyday Post-Socialism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95089-8_7
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