Data collection

As is characteristic of ethnographic research, data for this study was collected through participant observation, fieldnotes and interviews. In addition, I collected taped data of audio-recorded verbal interactions between my participants and kitchen workers. These methods and the associated issues are discussed in the following sub-sections.

73 Emphasising first-hand experience of the lived world of participants, ethnographic research is characterised by participant observation (Spradley 1980:33, Hammersley and Atkinson 2007:3). Becker and his colleagues provide a succinct definition of this method:

For our purposes, we define participant observation as a process in which the observer’s presence in a social situation is maintained for the purpose of scientific investigation. The observer is in a face-to-face relationship with the observed, and, by participating with them in their natural life setting, he gathers data. (Becker et al. 1968)

As a participant observer, I joined in activities, shared experiences and took part in interactions among the participants (O’Reilly 2009:150). I was able to see how participants responded to events as they happened and experienced for myself these events and the circumstances that gave rise to them (Emerson et al. 1995:2). Throughout the fieldwork and with my research aim in mind, I thought carefully about what I saw, interpreted it and talked to participants to check emerging interpretations (Delamont 2004:218).

Nature and extent of participation

Unlike the traditional ethnographer who lived among the people whose lives were being documented, I left the fieldwork sites and my participants, literally, at the end of the day. Although my interactions with participants were fairly extensive – during school hours, at work placements and on the many occasions that we hung out together, I ‘focus on what happens in a particular work locale or social institution when it is in operation’ like most contemporary sociological ethnographers did (Hammersley 2006:4). At their work placement, I assumed the role of a worker, turning up for work on rostered shifts and occasionally doing kitchen tasks that my participants did.

To be sure, it was simply not practical to do all the kitchen tasks that my participants did. Noting the practicalities involved in fieldwork, Delamont (2004:218) states that ‘participant observation does not usually mean real participation’ because unlike the real participants,

74 the researcher needs to set aside time for activities such as writing fieldnotes and thinking about the fieldwork. She suggests that it is not a categorical requirement of being a ‘participant’ that the researcher does the same things as those being observed but rather that he or she interacts with them while they did it. At work placement, I was a participant by virtue of my presence and watching what my participants did as well as talking to them while they worked.

Insider and outsider perspectives

Nevertheless, I participated alongside in certain activities and my involvement with the participants and in their activities in the kitchens could be described as ‘moderate participation’ (Spradley 1980:60) where I ‘[maintained] a balance between being an insider and an outsider’ (ibid.). I was an outsider in certain activities due to my lack of experience and knowledge with handling and preparing food as well as in using the kitchen utensils and equipment. Yet I also shifted into the insider’s role when I helped with simple chores that the students did such as preparing the mise-en-place, peeling eggs and potatoes and shelling prawns. I was also roped in to play the role of aboyeur on a few occasions when the kitchens were shorthanded and experienced the pressures faced by workers and my participants during a kitchen rush. In my ‘moderate participation’ in the kitchens, I was sometimes an insider with my participants and at other times an outsider looking in. The insider/outsider perspective is a concern often raised in ethnographic research. As Hornberger reminds us, being too familiar or too unfamiliar with the culture has implications on ethnographic research:

Being too familiar with the culture being researched may distort interpretation toward shared biases, whereas being too much the stranger inhibits an emic understanding altogether. (Hornberger 1994:689)

75 Given my moderate participation in the kitchens, was I an insider or outsider and did I have an emic or etic perspective on the experience of work placement? And was I to be considered familiar or unfamiliar with the experience I was researching? Dwyer and Buckle’s (2009:60) discussion on ‘the space between’ provides some resolution to the struggle I faced in identifying myself as an insider (with an emic perspective) or an outsider (with an etic perspective).

Arguing against the dichotomy between insider and outsider status, the writers state that ‘it is restrictive to lock into a notion that emphasises either/or, one or the other, you are in or you are out’. They propose a dialectical approach based on seeing that how we are different from others also requires seeing how we are similar. This opens up a space between the extremes of differences and similarities, and allows the position of both insider and outsider. This space is poetically described by the writers, drawing on Aoki’s (1996) work, as represented by the hyphen in ‘insider-outsider’. It is this space that I saw myself in with regard to my participant observer status.

Dwyer goes on to write that the distinction between insider and outsider should not be made to privilege one view over the other: ‘As a qualitative researcher I do not think being an insider makes me a better or worse researcher; it just makes me a different type of researcher’ (emphasis mine). Richards also rejects the notion that one view is ‘better’ than the other, stating that ‘in fact, both are potentially important’ (2003:15). This is so because ethnographers seek different perspectives on what they study and will use different theories and techniques to avoid a biased view (ibid.).

I have found that being an insider-outsider and balancing the etic and emic perspectives enriched my insights. Being an outsider, I was prompted to question and think critically about the goings-on as I wanted to understand the context and meanings of what I saw and experienced; on the other hand, being an insider helped me to see things from my

76 participants’ point of view and to assess my ideas and assumptions in light of this. As Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee 1960) says: ‘You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it’. Drawing on both insider and outsider perspectives made me analyse my observations in different ways and helped me to critically review my ideas and assumptions. Form of observation

The form of my observation may be described as ‘open ethnographic observation’ (Copland and Creese, forthcoming) and my observational notes were used to record the ‘lived stuff’ (ibid.). With a blank page and pen, I wrote down what I saw, heard, smelled, felt and sensed in the field (ibid.). I was most often by the side of my main informant Max and I shadowed and interviewed him while ‘on the move’ (ibid.). To widen my observation, I did the same with the other trainees in their kitchens when Max was engaged in activities of a fairly long duration (e.g. peeling 5kg of potatoes).

3.3.2 Fieldnotes

A second important aspect of collecting data in the ethnographic approach is the use of fieldnotes. Emerson and his colleagues summarise the core of ethnographic research as comprising ‘first-hand participation in some initially unfamiliar social world and the production of written accounts of that world by drawing upon such participation’ (1995:1), and Walford states that ‘fieldnotes are the basis on which ethnographies are constructed’ (2009:117).

Writers however differ in what they consider to be fieldnotes (Jackson 1990:6, Walford 2009:120). Generally regarded as written texts (Bond 1990:274, Emerson et al. 1995:9), fieldnotes may also include headnotes, a term coined by Ottenberg to refer to ‘notes in my mind, the memories of my field research’ (1990:144).

77 In terms of the content of fieldnotes, while Emerson and his colleagues recommend documenting the researchers’ own activities, circumstances and emotional responses in fieldnotes (1995:11), Sanjek suggests that personal emotions and reactions be recorded in diaries rather than fieldnotes (1990:108), something Sara Delamont does as well (Walford 2009:122).

However they have been defined, fieldnotes are notes of observations made in the field. Based on Richards’ description of the form of fieldnotes (2003:138), my fieldnotes were notes from the field, memos and a research diary. In my notes from the field, I recorded observations made in the placement kitchens and included several features suggested in Richards (2003:130, based on Spradley 1980): the setting (including drawings of the layout of the space and describing the objects found in it); people (main characters in the scene and others who made the occasional appearance, relationships to my participants, interactions and feelings) and behaviour (timing of activities, routines, processes and events).

Sanjek suggests a two-stage process in writing fieldnotes: ‘scratch notes’ are first made while in the field, and later expanded and developed to fieldnotes (1990:95). Emerson and his colleagues (1995:15) and Hammersley and Atkinson (2007:142) recommend that fieldnotes be written up as soon as possible after the observed action. Connolly (Walford 2009:124) drives home the importance of this when he reports losing ‘a fair bit of notes’ by not writing them up and not understanding the shorthand he wrote in his notebook even after only a week.

I adopted Sanjek’s (1990:95) two-stage process of writing scratch notes while in the field and expanding on the details at the earliest possible opportunity. This was usually when I returned home from the kitchens. On occasion, I was simply too exhausted upon reaching home to type up well-developed fieldnotes and would fill in as much detail as I could to my

78 scratch notes, leaving the task of typing them up to a day or so later. Paranoid as I was over Connolly’s (above) experience, I did not dare to leave more than two days before doing so. In my typed-up fieldnotes, I included memos in a separate column where I recorded ‘interpretive asides’ (Ball 1984:94), as well as possible connections with theory and methodological points (Richards 2003:137). I also used a research diary to record my daily activities and reflections on the research process (ibid.).

3.3.3 Interviews

In addition to participant observation and fieldnotes, I collected data through interviews. Interviews ‘lie at the heart of qualitative research’ (Richards 2009:195) and are a frequently used qualitative method (Benson et al. 2006; Roulston 2010; Mann 2011). Kvale and Brinkmann explain the qualitative research interview as attempting ‘to understand the world from the subjects’ points of view, to unfold the meaning of their experiences, to uncover their lived world prior to scientific explanations’ (2009:1). This was the approach taken in my interviews.

By definition of participant observation, my observations in the field included ‘encounters with participants that are to all intents and purposes brief and informal interviews’ (Richards 2009:184). Being around the kitchens over an extended period, it seemed natural that I did what O’Reilly has described: ‘tune in to [conversation and talk], engage in it, and to ask questions pertinent to her own research as and when she can’ (O’Reilly 2009:125). Often, these were spontaneous conversations which arose in the situation and unfolded whilst trainees and workers were working.

In addition to these data from the trainees and workers at TVC and HS, I collected data with students working in other placement kitchens when I met them for coffee every few weeks. At the end of my fieldwork at college, several students appeared to anticipate feelings of

79 isolation as they began the new and unfamiliar experience of working life and requested that I ‘visit’ them during the placement period. As I had developed good relationships with them and did not want them to feel abandoned, I decided I might do so but I was not sure initially how I was to find the time given my daily commitment at TVC.

However after about a month of daily observation with the five TVC trainees and spending almost every waking moment with them, especially Max, I decided having some ‘breathing space’ would be beneficial to them and me. I began scheduling sessions to meet the other students during my four-hour split-shift breaks between lunch and dinner service at TVC. Initially, I simply recorded these informal sessions in my fieldnotes and had no clear idea what I would do with the material. I thought at the very least, they showed that I was ‘doing something’ when I was away from my main research participants. Soon though, with the students’ permission, I began audio-recording these sessions when I realised they provided valuable insights to experiences at other placement kitchens and helped me generate and develop ideas from my observations at TVC.

The form of these interviews, based as they were on an established relationship with the participants, was more akin to ‘in-depth conversations’ (O’Reilly 2009:125) than the ‘standard interview’:

We usually begin with an outline, guide or plan, but are content to let the interviewee wander off what we think is the point. An ethnographer is usually attempting to learn about participants from their own perspective, to hermeneutically understand the other’s view, and this will not be achieved by imposing one’s own line of questioning on people. (O’Reilly 2009:126)

The writer also cites William Foote Whyte as saying that:

The whole point of not fixing an interview structure with pre-determined questions is that it permits freedom to introduce materials and questions previously unanticipated. (Whyte 1981:35)

80 My interviews followed a naturally-flowing discussion style in what may be described as the ‘unstructured’ interview (Dornyei 2007:135) and ‘non-directive interviewing’ (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007:101). I had a general idea to cover topics, primarily based on how they were getting on but later also on their placement experience, but how these issues were taken up and developed was left very much to the flow of the discussion.

On occasion, I attempted ‘semi-structured’ interviews (Dornyei 2007:136) instead of allowing the discussion to flow naturally but this style did not help very much with my research. In a few instances, students asked me hesitantly after I switched off the recording device whether they had given me the ‘correct’ answer. It also appeared to put the students in a spot between wanting to help me with my research and struggling with their responses. In the end, I became selective about using this style.

As my plan was to focus exclusively on participant observation so that I would be ‘physically and ecologically penetrating [my participants’] circle of response to their social situation, or their work situation, or their ethnic situation or whatever’ and to be ‘a witness to how they react to what gets done to and around them’ (Goffman 1989:125-126), this research was not an interview-based study. I used the interview data for illumination (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007:102-103) and triangulation.

Arksey and Knight (1999:21) define triangulation as ‘the basic idea … that data are obtained from a wide range of different and multiple sources, using a variety of methods, investigators or theories’ and it had the two main purposes of ‘confirmation’ (Denzin 1970, cited in ibid.) and ‘completeness’ (Jick, 1983, cited in ibid.). Interviews provided this triangulation; the interview data guided my observations and fed my interpretations. To illustrate, the concept of origination (Chapter 6) arose from my observations and what other students told me about their kitchens and their experiences. I had observed kitchen

81 workers’ behaviour (and Max’s response) and through interviews with students at other placement kitchens realised there were regularities across kitchens (and other trainees’ lack of an equivalent response). These data were combined with other field encounters (interviews with Nurul’s employer and a college lecturer). The synthesis of observational and interview data led to ‘finding’ the specific action of origination in the work placement kitchens.

Although I collected data through interviews, my primary data set in analysis was fieldnotes. This is not an interview-based study and interview data informed analysis rather than formed a data set to be analysed in its own right; more specifically interview data served triangulation and illumination purposes. In the field, listening to and paying close attention to the interview data led to reviewing, developing, refining and constructing my ongoing analysis; and in the subsequent formal analysis, interview data was drawn on, where appropriate, to illustrate analytic claims.

Given the focus of this research on trainee experience, it might be suggested that retrospective or post-experience interviews with the trainees would have given me a trainee perspective. However my focus was to understand the experience of being a trainee as it happened and for this, encounters in the moment were much more valuable. Trainee reflections following the work placement would inevitably be filtered through the lens of its outcome and mediated by other experiences following its conclusion. Moreover within the space limitations of the thesis, it would be practically impossible to give to trainees’ personal reflections the adequate treatment that it should be due; for the same reason, all that I could have done with post-placement interviews was extract one or two personal reflections and these were not at all central to my study.

82 In addition to participant observation, fieldnotes and interviews, I collected audio- recordings of verbal interactions between kitchen workers and my participants as I planned to carry out discourse analysis of verbal interactions. The relevant issues related to the audio-recorded data are recording and transcription.

Recording

Verbal interactions and the material recorded in the kitchen setting were unlike those in most workplaces studied in linguistic research which ‘involved interactions in which the participants keep relatively still, and the background noise levels are relatively low’ (Holmes and Stubbe 2003:18-19). Kitchens were noisy and busy places and this posed particular challenges in collecting spoken interaction. Holmes and Stubbe summarise the main challenges:

In addition to the obvious problem of obtaining good quality recording in a noisy environment, there were physical challenges such as the issue of a safe place to locate equipment … in a context where informants moved around constantly. It was also crucial that we obtained essential contextual information about each interaction. Most interactions were very brief and remarkably context dependent; workers were concise and did not waste words in a context where the focus was on the production activity. (Holmes and Stubbe 2003:26)

Of the challenges mentioned, obtaining contextual information about each interaction was mostly resolved by my presence at the interactions and my fieldnotes. But obtaining good quality data and locating the recording equipment were issues that had to be managed.