Political Ethnography Notes PDF

Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 POLITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY ❖ Class 1: Introduction What is ethnography? ἔθνος (ethnos) = the people γραφία (graphia) = writing What? A research method that aims to develop an in-depth description...

Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 POLITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY ❖ Class 1: Introduction What is ethnography? ἔθνος (ethnos) = the people γραφία (graphia) = writing What? A research method that aims to develop an in-depth description of the social organization (i.e. social structure and culture) of a community / organization / group of people. A key goal is to develop a thorough understanding of how actors perceive themselves, others, their group and the meanings and motivations they attach to their social behavior; and how these are in turn shaped by the context in which they interact. A method (set of research methods/techniques) NOT a discipline, a method used in different disciplines. Historians use it. *Anthropology is a discipline, not a method 1. disciplines 2. methods An epistemology: A scientific approach, a way of knowing the world, starting from the ‘lived experience’ and a ‘sustained connection with the lives of others’ A Praxis: a form of producing knowledge though ‘being’ and ‘action’; producing knowledge from an intense, intersubjective engagement (interactive fieldwork) A social or political critique: Ethnography and activism Kirin Narayan when asked “Why ethnography?,” answered: For the discipline of paying attention; for becoming more responsibly aware of inequalities; for better understanding of the social forces causing suffering and how people might somehow find hope; and most generally, for being perpetually pulled beyond the limits of one’s own taken-for-granted world” (Narayan in McGranahan 2014). Ethnography as a ‘political act that enables us to challenge hegemonic conceptions of the world, challenge authority and better the act of the world’ (Alpa Shah, 2017). A written genre: A way of academic writing (citations, fieldnotes, thick descriptions, narratives) A lot of notes are taken, empirical material. Quotes of people, descriptions. -Study up: study elites, leaders, people who has power -Study down: study people who are subjected to the power, to politics 1 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 Ethnography: HOW? Fieldwork – based research Main method/ data collection technique: (long term) participatory fieldwork ○ Demanding and time-consuming praxis of ‘being there’, built on trust and empathy Observe what people do (and sometimes participate in the doing), instead of asking what they do Study of dynamics while they take place, and of which you are ‘part’ yourself Always interactive, always relational, always participatory, always in dialogue No fixed hypothesis nor rigid research design (open ended) Theory building ‘from the particular’, grounded theory Focus on DEPTH rather than BREADTH Classic’ ethnography: studying social world & experiences of community X by living within this community for at least one year. Community X: was often the ‘ultimate other’ (see next classes) Today: Ethnography of everyday (political) processes around us ‘Being there’ (the field) today: involves a blogosphere, refugee camp, an urban public space. Listening, participating, witnessing, reflecting in ways both actual and approximate (close proximity in time and space) Difference between ‘being an ethnographer’, or working ‘ethnographically’: ○ Being an ethnographer: long-term participant observation, live and participate in the research setting if an outsider: learn the language and cultural codes, immersion (?), personal relations with informants (vs ‘respondents’) ○ Working ethnographically: use ethnographic methods, insights and approaches, combining with other methods integrate ’thick descriptions’ in your analysis ETHNOGRAPHY: WHY? An original approach to social and political dynamics, forcing us to leave our own (for example western) understanding of things like ’the state’, ‘violence’, ‘bureaucracy’, etc. “By taking serious the lives of others, ethnography enables us to understand the relationship between history, ideology, and action in ways the we could not have foreseen and is therefor crucial to understand both why things remain the same and in thinking about how dominant powers and authority can be challenged” (Shah, 2017: 47) Understanding the world through others, to eventually better understand yourself A ‘deep’ understanding of power through immersion 2 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 “Exploring how power is lodged within the taken-for-granted meanings and everyday practices of the powerful; tracing shifting relations of power in various sites, institutions and transitions as they are ‘lived’ experiences and handles, by subordinate groups, the forming power over subjectivity of dominant discourses, social representations” (Shah, 2017, 41) Political ethnography Study political concepts through an ethnographic approach, using ethnographic methods Politics as everyday practices, actors, ideas, experiences Political processes in action Politics in their ‘everyday’ forms ○ Example: “an ethnography of bureaucracy”? Starting from how people experience and give meaning to political processes Actors and institutions and processes ○ Example: “ethnography of policing”? POLITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY VS ”CLASSIC” POLITICAL SCIENTIST APPROACH The value of ethnography in political science is sometimes controversial Case studies (monographs) instead of comparative models Instead of surveys and modeling: looking for the particular and the personal Complexity instead of one-dimensional theories, interaction between theories Cultural specificities instead of generalizations Deconstructing instead of universally applying political concepts Politics as power relations, on the level of everyday encounters and embedded in social relations Interpretative instead of positivist Meaning instead of truth AMONG WOLVES Book on history, principles and contention within Political Ethnography in the form of a theatre play Starting scene: Trial of Alice Hoffman, controversial Ethnographic Study Present at the trial: a bunch of famous anthropologists and sociologists Special guest at the trial: mysterious one-eyed ‘wolfdog’, who comes with the potential ‘salvation’ for political ethnography: the Field Invisibility Potion Multi-layered discussion on not only the ethnographic study of power, but most importantly, ethnography’s RELATION TO power 3 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 ❖ Class 2: The History of Ethnography - Situating Political Ethnography Objective of this class Go back to the HISTORY of Political Ethnography, to better understand its current values (as well as its current challenges) in the study of politics More than a classic canonical history, we go through a short critical contextualisation of ethnography’s history Understand Ethnography’s historical relation to political science Understand why in PE it is not only important to talk about the Ethnography of Politics but also about the Politics of Ethnography AMONG WOLVES INTRODUCTION Act 1: Mystical One-eyed wolfdog arrives (after a long travel of 3 months from Siberia to the US) in NY at the place where the trial against Alice Hoffmann will take place She encounters Timothy Pachirat and presents himself as having mystical powers The wolfdog brought “a special gift” She explains her “dreams” and then collapses Read: p. 7-8 *(full of metaphors and allegories to sociologists and ethnographers, situations that they have to encounter everyday, books that have been written and debates that actually take place in the field) THE PROBLEM WITH ETHNOGRAPHY Act 2: What is THE PROBLEM WITH ETHNOGRAPHY and how is the Field Invisibility Potion (FIP) promising to overcome it? Problem: subjectivity. Ethnographer influencing the field, contaminating reality observed. It’s polemical because it's unethical, a problem with ethnographers is that they never know whether to present themselves fully or not. Lying? It's a provocation Problem: who you are does not only condition what you see, but also conditions what you describe. Everyone interprets things differently. Data is connected to researcher, we are biased. A particular case is not replicable to other cases around the world, they are all very unique and specific. FIP would solve the replicable problem. We have to try and defend ethnography. Even if ethnography is subjective it is scientific, it's just another epistemological approach, we have to learn to overcome these problems. 4 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 *biased, an effect ethnographers always have to defend themselves from. more concretely the question of subjectivity, how the researchers influence the case with their presence, contaminate the environment they’re in. * FIP: a provoking proposal, ethnographers have been playing with the ethical conflict of positionality, of introducing themselves completely (their identity, background, position) or not. Unethical and dangerous to lie in front of the people you are analysing. Positionality not only influence how you analyse but also how you interpret the scene * the objective of the FIP is to become the methods more ‘scientific’, replicable and positivist - Defend ethnography as a science, against naturalism and essentialism. Instead of replicating → compare work with other researchers and authors. Act 3: Discussion about FIP between two scientists with radically opposite methodological approaches. -Positivism -Interpretativism: culturally mediated social facts Anthropology boosted the logistical and ideological support to create an ethnographic metholodogy Political science and ethnography Pachirat (2009) on te uneasy history of ethnography in political science: “Ethnography as a method is particularly unruly, particularly undisciplined, particularly celebratory of improvisation, bricolage, and serendipity, and particularly attuned to the possibilities of surprise, inversion, and subversion in ways that other methods simply are not. If we think of the range of research methods in political science as a big family, ethnography is clearly the youngest, somewhat spoiled, attention-seeking child, always poking fun at and annoying her more disciplined, goal-oriented, and outwardly-successful older siblings. Ethnography is the method who [sic] comes home to family reunions with the new mermaid tattoo, with the purple hair, with yet another belly button ring, and with a moody, melancholic artist for a girlfriend. At the dinner table, she is the method who interrupts her older brother’s endless description of his stock portfolio with tales of the last full moon party on Phi Phi Island in Thailand. Given that kind of unruliness, it’s no wonder that the older siblings and father figures of our discipline often revert to the language of “disciplining” and “harnessing” ethnography, of bringing her wild and unruly impulses under control by making her abide by the rules of the dinner table. In short, ethnography may be fun and exciting, but she might also get you excommunicated from the family”. For a long time, ethnography was mostly associated with anthropology and sociology Today: Increasing interest within political science to use ethnographic research techniques Not only in local politics but also in IR Shift referred to as ‘the ethnographic turn’ Increasing recognition of the value to not only find new answers but also to ask new questions 5 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 Examples of topics today studied from an PE perspective: authoritarianism, migration, social media and politics, radicalism, terror, borders policy neoliberalism, diversity, resistance, peacekeeping, humanitarian interventions, populism... Political ethnography and the politics of ehtnography PE explicitly studies POWER, but is at the same time a method with a very interesting explicit relation itself to politics and power That is the central topic of Among Wolves, see act 4. Setting act 4: All ethnographers (from different disciplines) are gathered for the trial of Alice Goffman (see class 1), the collapsed wolfdog at their feet, waiting for the mysterious prosecutor to arrive. They discuss the reason why they are there, the FIP, the role of applied ethnography, the nature of their ‘fields’ and the colonial background of ethnography Discussion amongst: Alice Goffman, Timothy Pachirat, Piers Vitebsky, James C. Scott, Loïc Wacquant, Séverine Autesserre, Katherine Boo, Karen Ho, Anna Tsing, Mitchell Duneier. Like any other scientific work, PE has an impact outside academia as it creates specific knowledge to be applied in politics See example last week: Contracted ethnographers from UGent by the Commune of Schaerbeek (BXL) to study security challenges sex-workers But also: Human Terrain System Read Among Wolves p. 48/51-52 Entanglement of ethnography with politics takes many forms beyond these controversial passages YET SIMULTANEOUSLY: Ethnography facilitating FBI/imperial interventions, Ethnography as a ‘liberating political act’ (See Alpa Shah class 1) “by taking seriously the lives of others, participant observation enables us to understand the relationship between history, ideology, and action in ways that we could not have foreseen, and is therefore crucial to understanding both why things remain the same and in 6 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 thinking about how dominant powers and authority can be challenged, that is crucial to revolutionary social change” (Shah, 2017) Urgent societal challenges make political ethnographers question the medium and ultimate objective of their research: Why the Revolution will not be peer-reviewed Read Among Wolves p. 43-46 ANTHROPOLOGY, COLONIALISM AND EMPIRE -Anthropology: Emerged simultaneously in France, UK, US since the late 19th century -Early context: Evolutionism: societies evolve from A to B (from primitive to complex industrial societies) -‘Discoveries’ and the need to ‘understand (and dominate) the Savage’ -1898 “Cambridge Anthropological Expedition” To Torres Straits, Australia -recordings and short movies, became basic framework for anthropological fieldwork -Later Anthropology: Study people and societies ‘threatened with extinction’ (by imperialism and globalisation) However, imperialism and colonialism were crucial grounds for the development of Anthropology (and ethnography as a method) Colonial system provided the logistical and ideological support for the boost of the discipline Explicit demand to study the colonized (indirect rule) CANONIZING ETHNOGRAPHY ? Until recently: most handbooks on Anthropology or Ethnography would refer to Bronislaw Malinowski (1884 – 1942) as ‘the founding father’ of modern anthropology, and of the ethnographic method Years of fieldwork by accidentally ‘being stuck’ in Melanesia during WOI His work became guidebook for ethnographic method standards & techniques do not start from preconceived notions live with the people you study systematic observations (special attention to the common, the everyday, t)he ordinary However, along and sometimes before Malinowsky there were OTHER founding mothers and fathers, who stayed without recognition until very recently (see discussion Among Wolves 54-55 on the work of the Afro-American sociologist Du Bois) DECOLONIZING POLITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY Increasing attention to and recognition of these silenced voices Silenced because of gendered and racialized institutional politics in which ethnography developed 7 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 Remains highly relevant and is a continuous effort: “research is (and remains) a deeply imperialist project. The black man is rendered a deeply divided and troubling object by Western European and North American (WENA) research lens: that reconstitute visions of his otherness, his savagery and his irrationality through modes of research production that deny him access to the ownership of the research, perpetuate racist theories of cultural difference and accentuate the power of WENA ideas over those in the majority world” (Fanon 1993) ❖ Class 3: Ethnography and 'the field' A CRITICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE FIELD IN PE “But what of ‘the field’ itself, the place where the distinctive work of ‘fieldwork’ may be done, that taken-for-granted space in which an ‘other’ culture or society lies waiting to be observed and written? This mysterious space —not the ‘what’ of anthropology but the ‘where’— has been left to common sense, beyond and below the threshold of reflexivity” (Gupta & Ferguson, 1997: 102) ETHNOGRAPHY AND THE CENTRAL PLACE OF “THE FIELD” Fieldwork is key to ethnography. Central element in the valorisation of the ethnographer’s work Central to the legitimacy of the ethnographer “The celebrated notion of GOING AND BEING THERE” To be a successful and respected ethnographer, you need to have a lot of ‘field’ on your CV If you have not spent much time in the field they will doubt whether you're good. AMONG WOLVES ACT 4 The scene: all gathered by a prosecutor who hasn't yet arrived. The wolfdog is there. They all go for a walk at the end of the scene to continue arguing about what to do with the potion. The themes: - Ethnography’s problematic colonial past - The tensions around applied ethnography of politics (for example HTS) - Where lies the ultimate contribution to ethnography? Making people aware or theory? Specific or general The tension between research design and research reality. Tension between the particular and the general, between the locus (where) and the object (what) those tensions are referred to in the book as ‘wolves to keep at bay’. Ethnography and the question of scale The problem of ‘canonizing’ the history of ethnography The role of political ethnographers in “studying up” and “studying down” The question of positionality The problem of ‘breaking up’ the big group of ethnographers 8 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 THE FIELD AS A TERRITORIAL LOCATION Read act 4: p. 28-29 “the field’ implies the notion of traveling Starts from a strong notion of territoriality But in times of globalisation: Ethnography and the challenges of “movement" Where is the field in a context of de- territorialisation? How to study increasingly ‘non-localised’ dynamics? (like politics and power!!) For a long time, focus on the local obscured the global Increasing interest in multi-sited ethnography Following people, objects, commodities and their journeys Ethnographies of Global Connections following the mushroom migrant journeys THE ARCHETYPE FIELD Ethnography: (participant) observation of processes as they occur “in their natural context” Classic anthropology and the field as the ultimate ‘natural context’ “Those living outside their native state (for example, Native Americans working in towns; Aborigines employed on ranches; or prisoners forcibly held in a penal settlement) came to be considered less suitable anthropological objects because they were outside “the field,” just as zoological studies of animals in captivity came to be considered inferior to those conducted on animals in the wild” (Gupta & Ferguson, 1997: 107) Classic anthropology: field as rural, agrarian, ‘wild’ (see the image and construction of ‘the savage’, class 2) CONSTRUCTING THE ETHNOGRAPHIC ‘SELF’ AND ‘OTHER’ IN THE FIELD 9 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 THE FIELD VS HOME Separated place and space, separated activities Different types of writing The idea of Entry and Exit in ‘another world’ reinforces the idea of THE OTHER Hierarchy of field sites: staying at home for the ethnographer is not as valuable Fieldwork as ‘heroic and adventure’ ”Authentic” Fieldwork (“hardship”) What if the field comes ‘home’? (see discussion Piers on the relation between his family and the rendeer camp) THE FIELD AND THE “SELF” Archetype fields came with archetype ethnographers, along racial and gendered lines Where it used to be a ‘no-go’ (remember Du Bois), today: increasing valorization of ‘native’ ethnography Zora Hurston vs Jessica Krug The construction of the ‘legitimate’ self in relation to the field Is native ethnography and exit to ‘exotism’ and ‘voyeurism’? See Among Wolves p. 57-58 THE FIELD AND ‘THE OTHER’ Does otherness lie in geographical distance? The “other” can be our neighbor, our colleague The “self” can be found on the other side of the ocean For example, the story of our Department: Started as the department interested in ’politics of conflict & development in the Third World’ In the context of Globalization: not only does the territorial notion of ‘the south’ does not hold (de-territorialise the ‘field’ of the Global South) We also have to recognise and study politics of conflict & development in our immediate surrounding THE ‘OTHER’: STUDYING ‘UP’ OR ‘DOWN’? Read Among Wolves 60-61 For a long time, to ‘find’ the ‘other’, anthropologists would exclusively study ‘down’ See also Timothy’s story of his ethnographic experience in the slaughterhouse The question of positionality in the field 10 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 AMONG WOLVES ACT 5 The themes: PE: the Theory, the Reflexivity and the Methods The relation between the Field and the Self (= the ethnographer), the Field & Home The role of self-reflexivity in ethnographic writing The praxis of DOING ethnography, the different steps and methods within PE research Selecting ‘the field site(s)’’ in an PE research project – discussions on multi- sited fieldwork Ethics and Overt vs Covert observation (see class 4) Questions of access and ‘how to enter the field’ The ethnographer’s relationships with informants in the field (‘building rapport’) Serendipity and improvisation in navigating the field RELATIONS IN THE FIELD POSITIONALTY is crucial given ethnography as an explicit INTERACTIVE, PARTICIPATORY, RELATIONAL method Therefore, important part of ACT 5 deals with RELATIONS in the field: Start with the ENTRY to the field: read The field is “out of control”: p. 112 illusion of control in the field Against the idea of ‘immersion’ and ‘rapport’: Read 103-105 (the story of Ali, and our dependency on others in the field) See also p. 106-107 (‘immerse’ with your worst enemy) RELATIONS OF LABOUR IN THE FIELD Heroic fieldwork of the ‘lone ethnographer’. But how ‘lone’ is the lone ethnographer? See the extensive literature and debates on the division of labour between the ethnographer and her/his ‘collaborators’ (assistants, ‘fixers’, ‘brokers’, ‘key informants’, ‘local experts’) Strong dependency, especially when issues of access See our own research group and the project Silent Voices Incentive to explicitly display and discuss power relations in our research, be reflexive about positionality and its impact, and invite every ‘stakeholder’ in the research process to critically reflect on it ‘silent voices speak up’ is linked to the issue of ‘savages speaking back’ “SAVAGES” SPEAKING BACK See the wolfdog who returns to the ethnographer The issue of the ‘ethnographic authoritative voice’ 11 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 writing on people without including their voice paternalistic logic of ‘giving voice to’ (neglecting local voices) writing on people without including them in the audience people are data, the ethnographer alone analyses the data (‘you deliver, we analyse’). ethnographers become ‘regional experts’ For a long time; ethnographies were written ON people, not WITH people, let alone FOR people Research output used to be completely inaccessible to the researched This has drastically changed, and has put pressure on fieldwork as a purely ‘extractive’ endeavour treating people as ‘data’, with fieldwork only empowering the ethnographer FIELDWORK: FROM EXTRACTION TO COLLABORATION Aim for more horizontal relationships and engage people as more then ‘research objects/subjects’ Study WITH people instead of studying people, design methods that engages the community in the different steps of the research Collaborative Approach, Co-Creation in research: “how research can be enacted – as a liberatory rather than oppressive venture” But will it “keep the wolves at bay”? REFLEXIVITY To live ‘among wolves’ requires explicit reflexivity and being critical and very explicit about questions of power and positionality (in the field and in the university) Therefore, ALL ethnographic writing includes a part on positionality and reflexivity Therefore, the ethnographer will eventually write much about ‘her/himself ‘ than about the ‘other’ FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE FIELD THE FIELD in political ethnography : look at the variety of ‘fields’ in the group of anthropologists/sociologists gathered for the trial THE FIELD in political ethnography is NOT bounded to a physical space, can be any social space or site of political action, political performance, political contestation, power, conflict… Also referred to as ‘political ‘arenas’ The arena presents a political space in which various actors deploy a range of material and symbolic resources to construct and negotiate their authority (Hagmann & Péclard 2010, p. 542). Physical as well as virtual and digital settings 12 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 New political arenas (power struggles) by digital technology (see our class on digital ethnography) RECAP Who is the wolfdog in the story? Where does it comes from What does it sybolise? Political Ethnography ‘surrounded by wolves’ Haunted by questions of coloniality Questions of scientific quality (interpretative, specific inductive...) Questions of lack of control and subjectivity The GRAND question of POWER HOW CAN ETHNOGRAPHY LIVE AMONG WOLVES? 13 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 ❖ Class 4: Method 1- Participatory Observation (PO) ACTION! FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE MODULE 2: Ethnographic research TECHNIQUES... Are never JUST techniques (remember Alpah Shah) PO as a ‘revolutionary practice’ (Alpa Shah) A form of knowledge production through ‘praxis’ the process by which theory is dialectically produced and realized in action (Shah p. 48) Definition PO Shah p. 51 Participant observation centers a long-term intimate engagement with a group of people that were once strangers to us in order to know and experience the world through their perspectives and actions in as holistic a way as possible PO enables us to explore the disjuncture between what people say and what they do ETHNOGRAPHIC OBSERVATION Participant) observation: cornerstone of ethnography Going ‘where the action’ is (people’s communities, homes, workplaces, recreational sites, places of interaction -also virtual-, offices...) Researcher takes part in the (daily) activities, interactions, events of (a group of) people to study the explicit and implicit aspects of their routines, behaviour and ‘culture’ (see Pachirat’s slaughterhouse) Provides the setting to ‘see through the eyes of’ ‘Ideal’ setting: the observation is informed by contextual knowledge (on culture, politics, social norms.. ) through long term familiarization (with the people and the setting) MANDATORY READING Chapter from PhD dissertation prof. Sophie Komujuni Based on extensive fieldwork in Northern Uganda Research on impact of dwindling donor funding on the position and role of customary (traditional) leaders (rwodi) PO of one specific event/activity clearly situated in time and space Ethnographic paper: how is it structured? Why is the activity political, how does Komujuni argues for its political character? What does Komujuni include in het observations beyond the activities and the speeches What is the main political-theoretical CONCEPT investigated through the ‘window’/lens of the activity? Analysis: what kind of additional data used? ` Analysis: what broader political arguments to be made from the PO of the event? 14 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 OBSERVATION: SCALES OF PARTICIPATION TYPOLOGY (Spradley 1980) Passive participation: researcher is present at the activity but acts as a distant observer; no interaction (example: participating to a court session as an outsider) Moderate participation: researcher is present at the activity, she or he is known by the participants as a researcher, sporadic interaction with the participants (example. classroom) Active participation: active participation to the activity in order to collect an insider- perspective (example: Piers and the “rendeer people”) Complete participation: researcher becomes (temporary) full member of the ‘community’ (example: Pachirat in the slaughterhouse) OBSERVATION: SCALES OF PARTICIPATION BETWEEN INSIDER AND OUTSIDER Depends on your positionality Depends on your role (background observer, an extra pair of hands, or a colleague...) PARTICIPATORY observation means an INTERACTIVE experience (not distant or ‘outside’ observer) Ex: Journalist reporting on a political demonstration from a press-car or helicopter vs marching with and in the midst of the demonstrating people Embedding into a scene as a participant inevitably means that the information collected is, in certain ways, unique to the individual collecting the data Example Sophie Komujuni: between insider and outsider SOME POINTS BEFORE STARTING THE OBSERVATION Arrange access & entry Decide: Structured – unstructured PO (for the 4h PO exercise: do an unstructured PO) !! INFORM YOURSELF as much as possible about the event/setting/community (= read and look up documentation!) (see Komujuni’s contextual subchapter on the history and preparation of the event) THE RULES OF THE GAME: WHAT TO OBSERVE? BASICS: 1) PLACE: Mapping and description of the physical environment (+ physical objects) 2) ACTORS: Description of the people in the setting (also those in the ‘periphery’, like who comes in and out of the setting during the event) What do they look like, what is their age? 3) ACTIVITY: Description of the activities and interaction between the people in the setting with special attention for sequence (time dimension) and non-verbal elements. Not what is being said, how this is being said. Description of the talks: what is being said by whom Description of the atmosphere, ambiance What is happening when nothing seems to be happening 15 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 What is the effect of your presence in the setting? Can have a huge effect, we have to realize how our presence generates a dynamic. Important to capture body language, tone of voice THE RULES OF THE GAME : DOCUMENTING THE OBSERVATION Take notes during or RIGHT after the observation Manual or digital. Visual documentation ≠ note taking! Why is there so much attention to this part of ethnographic research? Rules ‘raw notes’ document as much as possible, use codes & abbreviations (‘jottings’) structure your notes (date + time) digitally store your notes Expanding’ these raw notes into a more descriptive narrative as soon as possible after the observation (preferably within 24h, to minimize loss) 16 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 THE RULES OF THE GAME: NOTE-TAKING 17 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 AFTER THE OBSERVATION: PROCESSING YOUR FIELDWORK NOTES ‘Expand’ your notes as quick as possible ‘Code’ your notes + additional material such as informal talks Coding in relation to your research question & theoretical framework Your notes from them observation should enable you to present a ‘thick description’ of the activity in question THICK DESCRIPTION Geertz (Class 2) "From the point of view... of the text- book, doing ethnography is establishing rapport, selecting informants, transcribing texts, taking genealogies, mapping fields, keeping a diary, and so on. But it is not these things, techniques and received procedures that define the enterprise. What defines it is the kind of intellectual effort it is: an elaborate venture in... 'thick description"' (Geertz, 1973, p. 6) Describing the event by contextualizing it, and engaging with its multiple layers and meanings// Vs. //thin description (simply reports facts, independent of intentions or the circumstances that surround an action) Denzin, 1992: Main features of “thick description.” (1) It gives the context of an act (2) it states the intentions and meanings that organize the action (3) it traces the evolution and development of the act (4) it presents the action as a text that can then be interpreted. Refers to the researcher’s task of both describing and interpreting observed social action (or behavior) within its particular context Thick description captures the thoughts and feelings of participants as well as the often complex web of relationships among them. Thick description leads to thick interpretation, which in turn leads to thick meaning of the research findings for the researchers and participants themselves, and for the report’s intended readership. 18 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 THE RULES OF THE GAME: ANALYSIS OF YOUR DATA Make sense of your data from PO (notes, thick description) by analysing it in relation to other ethnographic data (quotes from informal conversations, interview transcripts, notes from group discussions…) Thematic analysis Connecting thick descriptions to theory: finding the right balance between theory and data is key. THE RULES OF THE GAME: ETHNOGRAPHIC WRITING Offer the reader the richness of your data: let the data ‘shine’ in your writing While referring to your data: respecting basic ethical codes (anonymity, traceability) Empirics to the fore Use direct quotes, transcripts from conversions, or integrate them in the text Observations are a personal experience: use the 1st person, always. It's very scientific to write like this. Be self-reflexive (but do not loose yourself in endless navel-gazing). IMPORTANT IN THE EXAM EXERCISE. Reflective about the limitations, access to the field, our positionality, etc. 19 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 ❖ Class 5: Method 2- Visual Ethnography Political Ethnography and the visual Globally, the visual (just like the digital) is part of everyday human lives, experiences, interactions, lifestyles and cultures Part of how we constitute our (political) identities, representation, relations, memories It is part of the ‘everyday’ the ethnographer seeks to investigate... ALSO IN POLITICS! The visual and the Performativity of power, authority, control, Popular Politics & the visual Performing political identities using (visual) social media Aesthetics of power Images, visuals and media are part of the ways in which we (can) constitute ethnographic knowledge: Visuals: - As part of ethnographic research topics/questions - As part of ethnographic methods - As part of disseminating ethnographic research results - As an epistemology Visual Ethnography as a ‘route to knowledge’ Like always: the method is not JUST a method Using the visual as an epistemology: a way of knowing “...a fundamental assumption of visual ethnography is that is is concerned with the production of knowledge and ways of knowing rather than with the collection of data. I understand ethnography as a process of creating and representing knowledge or ways of knowing that are based on ethnographers’ own experiences and the ways these intersect with the persons, places and things encountered during that process.” (Pink, 2013: 35) Routes through which to come to understand (and make visible the invisible, make touchable the the immaterial) Routes to knowledge, ‘tools through which we can encounter and imagine other people’s worlds’ (Pink, 2013: 39) Routes through which to understand the ‘invisible’ Ethnographic attention to the SENSES The immaterial, the sensory nature of human experience “doing visual ethnography offers a route to comprehending those aspects of experience that are very often sensory, unspoken, tacit and invisible” (Pink, 2013: 47). When “you need to see/watch it, to be able to get it” 20 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 Sometimes one image or scene explains more than an entire book Egyptian Military Parade Thinking beyond the dominant position of the written: !! The visual can be at the centre, they are not only there to ‘support’ the (superior) written analysis Visual Ethnography: the collaborative and reflexive ways Ethnography is all about encounters and interactions Collaborative and participatory visual ethnography: broad spectrum from ‘holding a camera to being a movie star’ ‘our ethnographic strategies are also shaped by the subjects’ situations, their global as well as local perceptions, and their demands and expectations of us’ (Pink, 2013 p. 4) !! Reflexivity is KEY: the ethnographer being part of the knowledge that is been constituted Subjectivity as a central aspect of ethnographer’s knowledge, interpretation and representation “ Intersubjectivity between researchers and their research contexts and participants, that produces a negotiated version of reality” Understand the invisible, sensatory experience, - The role of masculinity in the performative power … ?? → en el gym? - The visual can be at the center, go beyond he written - Written article and the photographs in the margins,, they can also be in the center and be the start which the written follows - INTERACTIVE !! constant encounter - Always think critically about your positionallity in the situation and the knowledge we produce (reflecxivity is key) - Start taking picture and people start to perform (de fiesta?) Who am I to represent them? Power is produce , produce by performance Ethnographers are not a fly in the wall, they are part of the reality they analise Ethnography and the visual endless possibilities Photography as documenting device Ethnographer as photographer (and the aspect of performance) Participants as photographers (the ethnographer’s or the participants’ initiative) ○ (‘hand out’ cameras) Participatory documentary Participatory (fiction) movie Interviewing with pictures: own pictures, ethnographer’s pictures, interpreting together, provoking questions... Exhibitions... Examples: video Nicolai Mai “travel” 21 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 Nicola Mai (Kingston University, London) Ethnofiction: a collaborative filmproject on and with Nigerian sex workers in Paris Part of larger research project on humanitarian interventions on migrant sex workers in fight against human trafficking (tensions between sexualized and gendered narratives of vulnerability vs agency) Collaborative script External actors to play (and reinterpret) the sex workers’ experience Reinterpretation - performance through ethno-fiction enables the participants to express their individual and collective trajectories from a ‘distance’ while protecting their privacy Examples: video Joshua Oppenheimer: “The act of killing” Anthropologist doing research on Indonesian mass killings of 1965-66 Initially interested in listening to the experiences of the survivors and their descendants When on the ground, much easier to talk openly with perpetrators than with victims – changed focus Killers – gangsters in political positions during the making of the film A group of former executioners’ script a movie in which they re-enact their own mass killings ○ The spectacle of violence ○ Violence and the performative stage GUEST LECTURER: MAARTEN HENDRIKS - My life is like a Moovie ❖ Class 6: Method 3- Digital Ethnography “NETNOGRAPHY” “it is no longer imaginable to conduct ethnography without considering online spaces” (Harlett & Barber, 2014: 307) Digital / online spaces and activities incorporated in everyday social AND POLITICAL lives of people (including social & political researchers) THE FIELD in social & political sciences has been increasingly extended into the digital world Resulted in a boom of literature on the topic Digital Ethnography, Online Ethnography, Virtual Ethnography, Netnography “NETNOGRAPHY”: DIGITAL/ONLINE/VIRTUAL ETHNOGRAPHY 22 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 The reality where online and offline worlds are increasingly merged, thus pushes ethnographers to rethink some theoretical and methodological concepts: In digital ethnography, we are often in mediated contact with participants rather than in direct presence. We might be in conversation with people throughout their everyday lives. We might be watching what people do by digitally tracking them, or asking them to invite us into their social media practices. Listening may involve reading, or it might involve sensing and communicating in other ways. Ethnographic writing might be replaced by video, photography or blogging (Pink et al. 2016) The current “Digital Condition” pushes ethnography toward radically rethinking the classical ethnographic categories such as field, community, identity, participant, ethics, etc. PERFORMATIVE POLITICS Remember the Egypt military parade Ethnographers are particularly interested in how politics are PERFORMED (Political) Performance always needs an audience: digital space offers an immense trans-local audience, mass-reach Through hashtags and tweets: bring the spectacle from the public into the private space Performance is key in online/social media activism, online political identities (‘staged’/performed’ identities on social media) How politics conduct in the war on drugs and how media and other fields intersec with it. Analyze their performance and with each other. THE DIGITAL AND THE POLITICAL -The “digital revolution” has transformed politics -See literature on social media and political mobilisation (Arab Uprisings ) -Using/blocking Digital Technologies for ‘doing’ politics -See Book Nyabola: “Digital Democracyn Analogue Politics” -The digital becomes an entirely new political ‘public sphere’ of political mobilisation and contestation (Kanya) -Political ’stage’ moves online, ‘street politics’ moves online -For traditionally marginalised groups, digital spaces have allowed Kenyans to build new communities DIGITAL FIELDS AND DIGITAL METHODS For this course, dealing with Digital Ethnography we distinguish between A) Ethnography studying digital FIELDS B) Ethnography using digital METHODS For example: Facebook A) Facebook could be studied ethnographically as a digital field in which politics are performed B) Facebook could be used as an ethnographic method to collect data on a political topic 23 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 A: WHEN THE FIELD IS DIGITAL ”Where” is the field when in its digital? Digital fields are not easy to ‘demarcate’ - Example: Facebook communities Digital fields are ‘networked’, ‘multi-sited’ or even ‘un-sited’ Ethnographies where ‘the field’ is 100% digital are an exception Ethnography in Second Life Most of the time, ethnographies of online political identities, online activism etc. need contextualization by its connection to the offline field (see case-study) “The internet, far from being experienced as a cyberspace apart from everyday experience, is strictly intertwined with the everyday life of participants, as it is a technology constantly used for empowering their actual identities as well as their social bonds and activities” (Woolgar, 2002; in: Caliandro 2017: 4). Digital Ethnography 1.0: Ethnography of ‘virtual communities’ Digital Ethnography 2.0: Ethnography of social media platforms as dispersed and un-sited ‘crowds’ Ethnography and “Online Communities” “The online world, similarly to the offline one, is populated by communities, which are not mere virtual entities, but instead real and complex social formations that have a concrete influence on the life of their participants” “As for traditional communities, an online community continues to exist until its members experience a shared sense of belonging and perceive it as a social space in which they are giving and receiving support” (Schau, Muñiz, and Arnould 2009; in: Caliandro 2017) “I suggest that the main task for the ethnographer moving across social media environments should not be exclusively that of identifying an online community to delve into but of mapping the practices through which Internet users and digital devices structure social formations around a focal object (e.g., a brand)” From multi-sited ethnography to MOBILE ethnography: For example follow the circulation of an image, a hashtag, etc. across different online platforms in order to observe and compare the different meanings that different online audiences attach to it. B: WHEN YOUR METHODS ARE DIGITAL How does social media support ethnographic practice? Digital ways of data collection - Use hashtags to gather online data on a particular topic/event - Use social media apps for ‘remote’ research See text ‘chatnography’ in map digital ethnography Research experiences from myself & colleagues in war settings (next class) See text Russian Street Protest - Use social media apps for interviews & FGDs for ‘remote’ research 24 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 - Use live-streams to do PO from a distance - Use social media apps for informal chatting / keeping contact with informants What is the impact of digital methods on ‘doing’ ethnography? It changes your relation of ‘proximity/distance’ to the field (see class 3) Patty Gray (Virtual participation in live-streamed protest in Russia): ‘being there while not being there’ Live-stream participatory observation not being THERE, but being THEN Challenges... And opportunities: “Surrounding myself with my digital devices tuned to the various platforms following the demonstrations, I found I could achieve a kind of presence in the moment with afar more global view of the events than I would have had on the ground. If I had been there in body, I would have been limited to being in only one location at any given time, while the demonstrations were spatially dispersed over a wide area. So while I could have been on the street closely experiencing whatever was happening in the particular lo-cation I happened to be, able to interact with and talk to the people immediately surrounding me, I would have been pretty much blind to what was going on elsewhere—except to the extent that I followed it as everyone else did, that is, using whatever handheld device they were carrying. Either way I would be following the overall action of the street demonstration remotely” (Gray, 2016: 504) Guest lecturer - prof. Tom De Leyn WHAT IS DIGITAL ETHNOGRAPHY 90’s - 00’s: “The digital turn” domestication of digital media prevalence of virtual communities Virtual-, cyber-, internet-, digital ethnography Three definities: 1) “Researchers’ immersion and participant observations in technology-mediated platforms” (Liu, 2022) 2) “Employment of data-gathering methods that are mediated by digital media” (Murthy, 2011) 3) “Explorations of the embeddedness of the digital in everyday life” (Pink et al., 2015) During the time people starting using digital media the freedom of speech changed, we get more comfortable than we used to Nowadays we are connected everyday to an online reality 25 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 WHAT IS DIGITAL ETHNOGRAPHY “Buzzword ethnography” what is ‘digital’ about digital ethnography? what is the difference with ‘traditional’ ethnography? return of a positivist perspective? meaningless variations: hashtag ethnography, appnography, netnography, interface ethnography. Digital ethnography is quite trendy because we think that we need to engage in new practicalities. We need digital platforms to analyze ‘objectively’ the interactions between individuals in these networks. There are also reluctant people who think that the term ‘digital’ ethnography didn’t made sense. WHAT IS DIGITAL ETHNOGRAPHY? 1) Participant observations within online environments ‘going online’ and connecting to cyberspace the internet as an exotic space the digital as a distinct space with its own social, cultural and technological rules → Critique: is ethnography ever truly digital or physical? (this is an example:) In the beginning of digitalization, felt like going into another universe. It was a whole experience: people could create a new identity, explore sexualities, perform political characters, different that what they were engaging in the real world. 26 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 At the same time, there was a safety of identity, you could create a fake identity with no need of giving real data. Now we are in front of a surveillance period were we are expected to give our names, surname, age and more, in order to be able to create an account on instagram or tiktok, for example. ‘Going online’ was seen as something exotic something different. That is what turnt on the excitement of ethnographers to get involved in these practices in order to understand them and get to what was the deal with it. 2) Digital research techniques Walkthrough methodology the materiality of devices/platforms/apps infrastructure (experiences with) algorithms political economy governance Platforms are not free of politics, big companies and corporations try to design a platform to push social interactions in a certain way. If we analyze certain online platforms we also need to understand how the app is built and to whom it belongs (How they are governed and how they try to influence its consumers). These companies try to get as much data about the consumers as they can. They pay for IT. the technology of digital media allows researchers to map (social) life in new ways tendency to adopt a positivist mindset but useful to place technologies at the center of our critical investigations Example: 27 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 3) Hybrid perspectives: blurred boundaries between online/offline There are very blurred lines between online and real fields. Using digital media to send messages feels so natural that we often forget that we are entering another ‘reality’. We need to understand how the subject is presenting itself online as well as offline, apart from the interactions that they are engaging in. → e.g. analyze gender performances online, 10 acc of female expressing people, 10 acc of male expressing people, differences between race, age..? We also need to know what is happening in these people's offline life to understand why their performance online is being carried out the way it is. Creative opportunity for ethnographers E.g. Research Jeffrey Lane in Harlem (2009-2012) Young people who might be affiliated to gangs in Harlem. “My richest fieldwork came when I resisted the convenience of taking personal observation at face value or what I saw online as self-evident (Hine, 2015). By corroborating each setting with the other, and by asking questions of multiple people, better understanding emerged. I often took screenshots of content on social media that I then handed to people to ask questions like: What does this mean? Why did you say this this way? What happened next? The more I used screenshots as elicitation tools rather than final accounts, the richer my data became (Pink, 2009).” (Lane, 2016, p. 48) Distinction between online/offline = academisch construct ≠ messy, dynamic and digitalized reality The digital has become natural and forms an essential intermediary in our social everyday lives Therefore: “The best ethnographic research is done at the intersection of both online and offline realms” (Lane, 2016) Messy more hybrid reality, look for particular features of these platforms to understand the messiness. “Digital ethnographers study different forms of interaction and presence through or with media and the affordances of technologies in people’s lives” (Lane, 2016) Social interactions flow from offline to online environments and from online to offline environments → The field as a network of “flows” Networks create different type of dynamics, mobile media compress dimensional space, distance and time aren’t that definitive anymore. 28 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 Example about the influencer industry: Five principles PRINCIPLE 1: MULTIPLICITY There are multiple ways of engaging with the digital Dependant on subject, research questions, participants and technologies ○ e.g. how do you observe privacy practices? Digital media rely on infrastructures and everyday life ○ e.g. digital disconnection in the Global North vs. the Global South There is not just one way to include digitals in our research: what young people see as private info could be only what they don’t want to show, what they don't want other people to see. Digital media is not floating in the air, it creates infrastructures via its networks. PRINCIPLE 2: NON-DIGITAL-CENTRICNESS The digital rarely takes center stage “Digital media practices are not tabula rasa activities independent from offline identities” (Hargittai, 2013) The offline world sometimes teaches us more about the digital than the online world/digital technology itself Digital research techniques are never the goal, but a means to understand society Understanding digital media is good but we need also to pay attention to offline life, therefore, digitality does not represent the crucial part. The digital is an infrastructure that will change and push digital interactions. PRINCIPLE 3: OPENESS 29 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 Digital ethnography is an open endeavor Is by definition collaborative: we construct knowledge together with others, not as solitary researchers ○ e.g. your interpretation of social media content versus explanation by participants The digital allows for various forms of co-construction through technological affordances ○ e.g. asynchronous communication We don't need to be present. Human interaction. In terms of dissemination, what type of language do we use? to what audience are we addressing? In conflict research there are a lot of discussions about what is the best position, you have to be there when the conflict happens? Or do we need to see it from a certain distance? Conflict between proximity and distance. PRINCIPLE 4: REFLEXIVITY Reflexivity is crucial to digital ethnography What is our relationship to the digital? How are we connected to our participants via digital technology? How does the digital amplify issues related to positionality? How does digitality affect positionality? What are the implications and repercussions of doing something online for your personal life. Your friends and family are also involved Homofobia, conservative values online. Fear of becoming a target if you unveil your true identity. PRINCIPLE 5: UNORTHODOX In digital ethnography, we must pay attention to alternative forms of communication What types of communication arises at the intersection of online and offline? Are written papers the best approach to report on these alternative forms of communication? Participant observation at the intersection of online/offline PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION ONLINE/OFFLINE 30 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 Transparence is so important to project yourself. Researchers always perform. Everything is about suspicion, fear. People start to do identity checks. Methodology 15 month hybrid ethnographic fieldwork 2019-2021 in Flanders (Belgium) as a volunteer youth worker Participant observations & informal interviews across the organization, urban neighborhoods & digital platforms Processual approach He tried that his presence wasn't so disruptive. The approach of volunteering is very common within ethnographers, you are actively participating in what happens and not just observing. Participants Key group of 23 ethno-racial minoritized young men (15 - 22 years old) and 9 ethno-racial minoritized young women (15 - 19 year olds) Identifications with Middle-Eastern, North African, West-African, Central-African, East-African & Balkan Most identified as Muslim Low SES Some of them had some difficult socioeconomic circumstances. Inter Sectionalism. Positionality and reflexivity matters One of the research aims was to include underrepresented youths in research on digital media & privacy While aware of inequalities between myself and the participants, my initial assumptions of discrimination were naïve Initial distrust between participants and myself Long-term engagement, participants as collaborators, prioritizing the dynamics of the organisation… Importance of observing diverse people to also represent them. They have distrust because they experience discriminatory behaviors. Difference of how they react and he reacts when 31 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 they see the police. Privileged position. These differences in treatment gave him context of how these people experience discrimination. Ask the participants if they think the question are good, get them involved in the process. its my parents responsibility to take care of me. parents are able to check by mobile phone. so there is agency in these practices. everyday miscommunications with a practice to be observed. show private messages. 32 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 the graffiti texts in the city and the screennames (the construction of the first names…). by including specific identity they might be challenging some discourses. what they are actually doing is claiming a public space through visible platforms and practices. very short answering. They try to show an image of themselves with very strict features (dark looking, very serious pictures… are shared in social media). 33 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 Three lies of digital ethnography LIE 1: THE NETWORKED FIELD-WEAVER Are we truly capable of following networked flows between people, spaces, and objects? problematising the notion of the field as network It’s impossible to track every node in a network as it expands during and after fieldwork, it is inevitable to concdense the network to a more traditional field →“The lie of the field weaver hides the cutting as much as it glorifies the pulling together “ (De Seta, 2020) LIE 2: THE PARTICIPANT-LURKER To what extent does our research genuinely consist of participation of digital platforms? what is participation on the internet? mere lurking = frowned upon full participation = frowned upon →“The lie represent an apologetic figure and simplifies how our participation is tightly connected to social dynamics and technological affordances” (De Seta, 2020) LIE 3: THE EXPERT FABRICATOR Can we claim ownership over our data visualizations, multimedia representations and creative writing? In theory, it’s possible to show real interactions, photos, videos and audio BUT ethical implications due to affordances of digital media ‘Fabrication’ as an ethical standard in digital ethnographies →“The lie of the expert fabricator obscures the (creative) work and expertise of our participants (De Seta, 2020) Positionality and networked spaces POSIOTIONALY AND NETWORKED SPACES The affordances & features of digital technology require ongoing and continuous self-reflection invisible audiences: we are not sure of who is in the social media, who is getting access to our social media context collapse: different kind of contexts also in social media. differents people are coming together in the same access of which you are posting (even if they are friends, siblings or parents). blurred boundaries private-public: professional things may collapse with the personal 34 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 →Constructing approach for managing ‘digital’ and ‘non-digital’ identities ACCESS “Having access all at once” try to get the essence of what we are based in a profile. this makes possibly more difficult to establish a relationship What about informed consent? Individuals not originally participating in the study still come into view through online interactions→The depth and boundaries of networked ethnography must be continuously managed just assume that people may not be agree RELATIONSHIPS & NETWORKED IDENTITIES How do networks build or undermine trust within fieldwork relationships? What are the ethical implications of overlappig networks? Trust, distrust & ethical implications Maintaining continuous trust, safety, and ‘comfort’ for yourself and your participants Awareness of the spaces and relationships to which you have access, and for which you need additional consent Balancing authenticity and ethical standards always think about the safety of your participants and of yourself. CLOSING ETHNOGRAPHIC RELATIONS Leaving the field is complicated personal relationships develop after the research, these may passively or actively continue should we remove participants from our social media? we can't go out of the field. We are stuck in the field. sometimes relationships lie down. in social media you can press a bottom and disconnect but sometimes it is very hard. set expectations from the start implement clear transitions engage in conversations respect emotions 35 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 setting boundaries comes down to human decision-making ❖Class 7: Ethnography and the BA paper CLASS OUTLINE 1) Integrate ethnography in your research projects PE IN RESEARCH DESIGN If the research question allows, you can integrate one or more ethnographic methods in your research design the list is endless - participatory observation - visual ethnography - digital ethnography - biographical storytelling - participatory mapping - ethnographic walking -... Ethnographic methods can be combined with other qualitative (or quantitative) data collection methods If the research question allows you, you can integrate ethnographic methods or data collection techniques in the research. there are a lot (la lista) There should be a LOGICAL relationship between the research question and the ethnographic method Ethnography only works with research questions that need FIELDWORK (in stead of desk research like discourse analysis, document analysis or archival work or literature review) to gather data that provides an answer to the question Ethnographic methods in political science are particularly useful for research questions that require an in-depth understanding of Everyday manifestations of power and politics People’s experiences and cultural/social interpretations and reactions to dynamics of power and politics 36 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 Performative, symbolic, ritualistic power of politics Bottom-up and top-down formation of political identities these are the kind of questions that opened up the possibility of using ethnographic methods Examples of such research questions - How do university students organize and mobilize for political action within university? - How does the Kurdish diaspora community in Flanders engage in collective construction of diaspora political identity? - What are the everyday practices of resistance against austerity measures in daycare system in Flanders? - How do local politicians in Schaerbeek construct legitimacy and public authority within their communes? - How does the war in Ukraine influence inter-communal relationships within the Ukrainian diaspora in Brussels? - How do outreach workers engaged in refugee sheltering navigate between policy implementation and activism? From the research question to the methods: How do local politicians in Schaerbeek construct legitimacy and public authority within their communes? In-depth interviews combined with PO: follow that politician for a particular time, accompany her/him in the neighbourhood to observe the everyday (informal) mechanisms of building trust and legitimacy How does the war in Ukraine influence inter-communal relationships within the Ukrainian diaspora in Brussels? Focus Group Discussion PO at places where communities meet Participatory mapping of people’s mobility and encounters In-depth interviews you can combine different methods but you have to look at the logic to see what comes out first. How do outreach workers engaged in refugee sheltering navigate between policy implementation and activism? Focus Group Discussion PO through volunteering PO through following outreach workers in their everyday work In-depth interviews 2) How to integrate ethnographic data into academic writing 37 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 ETHNOGRAPHIC DATA IN ACADEMICS WRITING you have to imagine when you do ethnographic research, you do field work, and can get different kinds of data (it can be ethnographic diaries, recordings, written down notes, interviews…) When doing ethnographic research and you come ‘back from the field’, ideally you come home with a ‘basket full of ethnographic data’: - Extended notes of participatory observation - Notes of informal talks with research participants - (participatory) drawings, maps, visuals... How to integrate them into academic writing? you have all the data, how to transcript it to academic writing? First, if you combine many methods, each generates its particular kind of data, but you have to analyze them together, not separately. you have to combine methods because all will give you a piece of data to find the answer to your research question. Remember the –GRAPHY in ethnography: ethnographic research generates a particular type of writing - Writing in the 1st person - Rich contextualization - “Let the data shine”: bring thick descriptions, anecdotes from the field quotes, storytelling into the text - Use local concepts/language - Engage in reflexivity (write about yourself) - Embrace complexity remember the graphic in ethnographic, it is also a way of writing. When you write in an ethnographic paper, you write in singular, rich contextualization of what you present, and empirics must be there. also use local expressions that are used within the community you are working, and also extensive reflexivity, which means that you have to talk about yourself, your positionality and how your relation with the field has influenced the work and the analysis of the data. Finding the right balance between empirics and analysis is not always easy when you have extensive empirical data Basic rule: NEVER try to put ALL your data into one paper/thesis Use empirical data (field notes or quotes ) as evidence to support your argument/analytical claims, adding authenticity and depth to your analysis (not stand alone) Make sure to frame these quotes with enough context to understand their relevance 38 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 always think about the logic. it has to be empirical but not the whole data, it has to be an analysis. empirics have to be there but it have to serve for arguments of the research project. Example (research question on war- induced diaspora) As one of the women explained, ”before, we would consider them as close neighbours, we would chitchat on the streets. Today, there is total avoidance, we only see the enemy. Even of I remember liking that woman neighbour before because of how she always cared and gave good advice, now I have all this strong feelings and can only think of how our people are suffering back home and I don’t want to talk with them anymore1. This quote highlights how ethnic politics in the homeland are transposed to the hostland and cotinue to impact the everyday life. Feron (2019; 2023) refers to this dynamics as ‘conflict transportation’, whereby homeland conflict dynamics travel transnationally with migrants and are translated and reconfigured within diaspora social relations. - interview informant x, Ghent, 9 January 2022. This is me making an argument from a quote. Start the article/ chapter with a ‘vignette’: A detailed, vivid, thick description of a scene/observation/experience that you present as a window/introduction from which you start to explain a analytical theme or build an argument It sets the scene for the reader to enter the context of the political reality you will analyse It will offer the reader an insight into the rich empirical material on which your arguments are build (examples) Apply a consequent system to reference to your empirical data Direct and indirect reference: Example: 39 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 1) One morning, whilst sharing breakfast, the chief started to talk about the last week’s court case. ”You know, you have to know, I was not supposed to be there. It was after days of texting and visits and pressure of that kind, that I decided to show up there”* * Informal talk chief X (Gulu, 12/02/22) 2) One morning, whilst sharing breakfast, the chief admitted that it was only after days of pressure that he had decided to join the court case.* * Informal talk chief X (Gulu, 12/02/22) 3) It became clear that chiefs were often being pressured to attend court cases.* * Informal talk chief X (Gulu, 12/02/12); interview chief Y (Kitgum, 08/02/22); focus group discussion with state representatives of Gulu municipality (Gulu, 24/02/2022). always refer correctly to your empirical data.then you can make a large argument when you include the analyzing of data. you cannot make an argument based on one piece of info, one interview… you need a body to make that clean. then you have to specify where your argument is from. 3) How to analyse your ethnographic notes 1) Organize your ethnographic data (thick descriptions, interview notes, diaries, sketches,...transcribe, extend, organize chronologically) 2) Thematic Coding (descriptive or analytical) 3) Connect Themes to Theory: Relate your findings to relevant academic debates and theories (within the larger political or social sciences) 4) Identify key concepts from these theories that can be applied to your data to further analyse them in dialogue with existing theory the data analysis is done in a didactic way. The data in itself will tell you the themes. Example: You have done 4 weeks of fieldwork/data collection for your MA thesis on the research question: “How do local politicians in Schaerbeek construct legitimacy and public authority within their communes?" From your thematic analysis emerge the following themes: - Importance of building personal relations - Legitimacy in exchange for concrete results for the neighbourhood - Politicians use the same language/narrative to build trust and justify their decisions 40 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 Possible Theoretical Concepts: “Patronage politics” (Graham, others) “Negotiated statehood” (Hagmann & Peclard, who explain how legitimacy is produced by mobilizing sources and repertories) don't come with the concept of capitalism for example because it is so broad. try to specify morethe themes. every ethnographic paper must have a theorisation. you have to connect the analysis to the literature. 4) What to prepare from your observation notes for the exam? In preparation of the exam, I would like you to reflect on - 2 possible theories/concepts to be applied on the data from the observation. To which theory or academic debates could your observed dynamics speak or contribute? Regarding your data, upload the notes and briefly explain what you observed and what you think it's interesting to connect to a certain concept. this is an analytical question of the exam - The importance of your positionality in relation to what you have observed (access to the field, influence on dynamics happening, proximity or distance to the setting/people observed, biases, etc.). Another question is to think about the whole exercise of reflexivity. try to think about how your positionality has influenced on what you have observed. - How do you think this observation experience has impacted your understanding of the subject matter? also how your own experience has changed your understanding of that particular subject, and how this observation has changed your prior ideas. - How did you observe ‘power’ at play during the time of the PO exercise? how you recognise power The exam will have one or more of these questions, so prepare them for the exam. 5) Close our reading of ‘Among Wolves’ ENDING AMONG WOLVES Act 6: the trial Prosecutor is ‘defending the public interest and integrity of science’ 41 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 Others are assigned roles: the judge, defendants, jury 2 kinds of charges against Alice Goffman’s work 1) Charges in light of ‘the rights of the readers’ who have the right to a reasonably reliable rendering of the social world - Data fabrication - Data destruction - Contradicting post hoc explanations - Bias and preferences of some perspectives over others 2) Charges in light of ‘the rights of the research participants’ - Intend of physical harm - Failing to protect the anonymity of research subjects - Exposing research community to even more intensive modes of surveillance and control by documenting more attention and control - As a privileged white woman, Alice reenacts and reinforces stereotypes, shaping misperception and abetting black narrative and material subjugation Alice & defendants argue that the logics against which the charges are made are contradicting the interpretative core of ethnography (see the initial debate in act 2 on positivist vs interpretivist take on science) Several profound argumentations about how ethnographers need to navigate ‘among wolves’, between ethical standards, realities in the field, emotions, emphatic connections, responsibilities to protect vs pressure for transparency etc. Read page 154 be aware of the tension among maintaining distance but being empathic. Act 7: The wolf dog drinks the invisibility potion and kills Piers Vitebski no va a preguntar en el examen que hagamos un resumen de Among Wolves o que contemos lo que pasa en algún acto, pero si nos puede preguntar the historical engagement, how it is illustrated in the book… what represents a character… ❖ Class 8: Political Ethnography of violence & violent ethnographies 42 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 Political Violence The study of violence and its political function, violence with political aims. What we consider forms of political violence: Violence and its function within political agendas and struggles, violence used for political ends by state and non-state, military and civilian actors Terrorism, vigilantes, rebellion, electoral violence, torture, colonial violence, violent protest/resistance, racial violence, genocide... Ethnographic approach to violence Ethnographic FOCUS Micro-perspective “everyday war”, “everyday violence” Lived experiences and meaning-making (of those involved in political violence) (ordinary) actors behind violence & war Moving beyond binary categories (‘victims’ vs ‘perpetrators’; war vs peace) Moving beyond ‘normative’ approaches of war and peace In-depth, contextualized and historicized approach to political violence Performance of violence (see: The Act of Killing) War and violence as profoundly TRANSFORMATIVE dynamics Common that ethnographers focus on micro-perspectives, phenomena on a smaller scale. The research looks at the individuals behind the violence. It is also explained in the theater of among wolves. There are binary categories of violence separating into the victim and the perpetrator. Anyways, the ethnographic perspective dismantles that idea and looks beyond those binary distinctions. Violent conflict is not just about destruction. It also forms new identities, new forms of government, new systems… It is not only harming, unsettling, undoing… these approaches are the primary steps for a reconstruction. Ethnography has 1 method (participatory observation) that consists of analyzing politics at work. To see it at the moment and analyze its performativity. It is a constant performance in which we take part. We should ask ourselves not only methodological questions but also epistemological ones. Ethnographic TOPICS Motivation & legitimation of violence during protracted conflict 43 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 Violence/resistance & political subjectivity/identities, violence/resistance & social mobility People’s (everyday) navigation strategies in conflict and violence (structural violence) Symbolic, performative, and ritualistic aspects of violence Trajectories of Memory and Trauma (the construction of memory) “CLASSIC ” POLITICAL SCIENCE VS POLITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY EXAMPLE: STUDY OF REBEL MOVEMENTS Classic PS Researching “causes of violence” “What triggered rebellion”? Using comparative approach: Identify structural variables (for ex. “greed/grievance”), typologies Large N-Datasets Identify tendencies and trends Political Ethnography Researching individual motivations behind violence ; “pathways to violence” “How do people DO rebellion” (practice) how is it manifested in everyday activities? Focus on local context and political history Presenting multiple motivations, individual trajectories A lot of research has been done on the causes of rebel movements. PE instead of identifying the causes, it focuses on agency, on individual motivations behind violence. CLASSIC PS VS. POLITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY EXAMPLE : STUDY OF REBEL MOVEMENTS Research Question: WHY DO MEN/women REBEL? ‘The War Machine’ classic book POLITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY OF VIOLENCE & CONFLICT “should violence, as a research concept, be understood through the ontology of the ordinary people living trough it, or according to the homogenized categories established by scholars and policy-makers?” (Ratelle, 2003) Has always been an important topic within Political Anthropology Despite ‘the wolves’, we see an evolution of increased ‘scientific appreciation’ in policy circles of an Ethnographic approach to politics of violence and conflict 44 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 Ethnography and anthropology have always been there analysing violence but now we can see more explicit approaches, and increasing value of ethnographic insights Ethnographic insights become increasingly valued in conflict resolution and peacebuilding, recognising ethnography’s scientific and practical relevance ETHNOGRAPHERS RELATION ON POLITICAL VIOLENCE: CRITICAL DECONSTRUCTION… AND CONSTRUCTION Ethnographers critically study violent politics, but are also often involved in violent politics themselves through APPLIED research (as consultants) ← something we should always remember as ethnographers have also helped perpetuate violence, ex. cold war Role of Ethnographers IN processes of Violence, War and Peace In War/violent conflict (see act 4 ‘Among Wolves’) ○ use of ethnographic data in military strategies ○ intelligence, counter-insurgency, torture techniques (cultural curricula) ‘Winning the hearts and minds’, Human Terrain VIOLENT ETHNOGRAPHIES A particular ‘kind’ of ethnography? Specific FIELD characterised by insecurity, suspicion, fragility explicit power games, uncertainty, instability, fear → the field becomes its own reality Specific INFORMANTS characterised by violent trajectories, trauma, refuge, militarized identities... Specific ETHIC CHALLENGES AND REFLEXIVITIES Doing ethnography in a context of violence, position yourself in violence Much literature on practical, methodological and ethical challenges in DOING ethnography in explicit violent settings Has evolved from navel-gazing white privilege accounts on ‘how to survive dangerous fieldwork’ Into reflexive and collaborative accounts on the various ways in which fieldwork and violence are interconnected and the role of ethnographic relations and collaborations herein It has evolved thanks to feminist and decolonial literature, it is not a white male privileged field anymore 45 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 Books: ‘Fieldwork under fire’ Ethnographers’ search for ‘proximity’ in the violent field “THE VIOLENT FIELD” AND QUESTIONS OF PROXIMITY → POSSIBLE TOPIC ON THE EXAM !! Even as an outsider we try to reach as much proximity as possible, new positionalities that allow us to enter a closer relation in the research setting. Continuous idea of the triple A: do no harm (during and after). Levels of proximity can also cause lack of access in one part or the other, because of a certain proximity to one side. Is it better to experience the violence ourselves or to stay at a certain distance and observe it? Can we navigate both sides even if we acknowledge the perpetrator of the violence? Every interaction in the field comes with emotional encounters, we cannot get rid of our bias. We can be aware of our own bias via acknowledging our positionality. Ethnographers’ search for ‘proximity’ in the violent field Positionality (navigate between compassion-collaboration-complicity) Ethics Security and protection (of yourself, of others, during and after fieldwork) Access: navigating in a fragmented and contested field; ‘precarious dependencies’ Flexibility Questions of “Proximity” Proximity in Time: what is the best ‘moment’ to study violence and war? Proximity in Place: to be or not to be IN the violent field Embeddedness: limitations to full integration Engagement: activism as the ultimate form of proximity? *GUEST LECTURER* Faith Ogeto-Orwa will talk about her research on experiences of political violence in Kenya, and will zoom in on how to talk about and listen to violent memories beyond victim-perpetrator binaries. “Storytelling nsq” – BIOGRAPHICAL ETHNOGRAPHIC METHOD Peace-building in sub saharan africa workshop The state, Kenya, was acting in a terrorist way, extremist groups because they lack modern tools? Policy making on violence, how to deal with terrorist groups Adapting ethnographic methods to differents contexts Ethnography allows researcher to insert meaning in the data Quantitative data does not answer to “WHY” Impact of political unjust mobility and political violence (we get numbers but not experiences) 46 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 They say Kenya is a bastion of peace because they never had a civil war, but she thinks this country is actually a pace where political violence can be seen She examines macro level issues: migration, gender experiences… In 2008 Kenya had a very violent situation. Ethnic politics intersecting. Discussion because of who was the owner of the land. Post-colonial land issues. State structures. She can’t compete against a state issued document even if she has the right to inherit the land. What does it mean for someone that never had to deal with state to confront state structures? What causes this tension, political violence in every election period in Kenya? She studies that in her PhD. 2022 there were elections again. She asked her friend why did she stay in Kenya, why would she want to live in a country where violence is expected. They told her the solution to long lasting peace in Kenya was ethnic segregation. She did not agree. Why only violence in the election period, and everything peaceful then? It's not like that, tension is restrained until something happens and it explodes, and this happens when there is an election. You are always confronted with your position as a researcher. Importance of being aware of your positionality. A national population-based assessment of 2007-2008 election-related violence in Kenya Of 956 households surveyed, 916 households participated (response rate 95.8%) Compared to pre-election, ○ election-related sexual violence incidents / 1000 persons/year increased over 60-fold with a concurrent 37-fold increase in opportunistic sexual violence ○ Physical and other human rights violations increased 80-fold compared to pre-election. ○ Overall, 50% of households reported at least one physical or sexual violation. Households reporting violence were more likely to report violence among female household members (66.6% vs 58.1%) or among the Luhya ethnic group (17.0% vs. 13.8%). ○ The most common perpetrators of election-related sexual violence were reported to be affiliated with government or political groups (1670.5 incidents / 1000 persons per year): the Kalenjin ethnic group for physical violations (54.5%). ○ Over thirty percent of respondents met MDD and PTSD symptom criteria, however, symptoms of MDD (females 63.3%; males, 36.7%) and suicidal ideation (females, 68.5%; males, 31.5%) were more common among females. Substance abuse was more common among males (males, 71.2%; femalos 28.8%). 47 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 ❖ Class 9: Political Ethnography of the state State: classic concept in political science “The State” classic PS approach vs PE approach (Classic) Political Science approach: Structural and functional understanding of the state: The state as a set of institutions which exercises a series of functions (security, protection, territorial control, governance,...) Comparative models using Weberian parameters (sovereignty, legitimacy, territorial control, monopoly on violence) Result of these comparative model: typologies (of for example strong, weak, failed states) Political Ethnography Approach: Research in depth instead of in width “Deconstructing” the state by looking at: ACTORS (beyond institutions), PRACTICES (beyond functions), NORMS, DISCOURSES People make the state. Studying the state from the micro-level, from the ‘inside’ Studying the state in the inside is not always possible, but if you can do it, you will really understand how the state works. Emic understandings instead of Weberian conceptual framework Local contextualisation instead of comparison The state in its everyday manifestations Background: anthropology of the state The study of the STATE within the anthropological discipline: Anthropology was a latecomer in academic debates on the state ○ Historical context: Anthropologists working in (back then) so-called ‘stateless’ societies Writing about the state became popular in academic literature. At the beginning, there wasn’t any specific interest in analysing and writing about some states. They used to write about “the another world” (buscar qué es) Global academic knowledge production on the state: ○ Studies on the ‘modern’ western state: work by political scientists, administrative science, institutional scholars (and sociology) ○ Studies on the state in ‘the rest of the word’: work by anthropologists 48 Political Ethnography. 1st Semester Ixone Jiménez, Anne Luengo and Paula Moreno. 2024/2025 ○ Ethnography of the state: most cases in the Global South. Ethnographic analysis of the state in the Global North remain rare ○ For a long time there has been very few interaction between these two theoretic streams on ‘the state’ Background : anthropology of the state Characteristics of an Anthropological approach to the state: The role of culture Systems of meaning and belief Agency (not onl