Enactive Ethnography

Figure 9: The author in a workshop. Source: The Remakery

While not labelled ‘post-qualitative’, there has been a shift towards more-than- human modes of qualitative research in human geography (Edwards, 2017; Davies and Dwyer, 2007; Whatmore, 2003). Such work, as DeLyser et al. (2010: 16) point out, asks us to “rethink the construction of the world to include not just the agency of those we study along with that of the researcher in shaping that world, but also the agency of the material and biological worlds in our work and our world...This is not to reinforce a dichotomy between the material and immaterial, but rather to encourage attention to the ephemeral, the fleeting, the immanence of things

and places”. Cadman (2009: 462) notes that “nonrepresentational geographies do seek to harness and experiment with the mainstay of qualitative research

methods,” but perhaps in a more performative/playful awareness of how, in the intra-action between researcher and researched, materials are generated (Colls, 2012; Haseman, 2006; Whatmore, 2003).

Anderson (2009: n.p.) is explicit about the implications of NRT for social science methods; that is, learning “to witness the ongoing taking-place of life as a

composite of embodied practices”. A non-representational approach to method, focusing on extra-discursive elements as much as on texts and transcripts, entails

such witnessing to understand “not just how people describe their world – but

how they act in their world” (Pratt, 2009: n.p.). Despite holding “no one-size-fits-

all policy for accessing embodied knowledge and emotional response,” Lorimer

(2005: 86) has posited, with regard to this ‘witnessing’, a centrality of ethnography

as method. He points elsewhere to the popularity of “situated studies of sensuous,

corporeal, kinaesthetic experience, and mundane circumstances of materiality,

sociability, connection and association” (Lorimer, 2008: 556), noting the application of NRT in ethnographic studies of such disparate topics as cycling, airports, air travel, petrol stations, landscape architecture and walking.

In spite of an expansion of studies employing qualitative methods in human geography (Crang, 2002), ethnography was described at the turn of the millennium as a heretofore underused method, in spite of its potential to provide

“unreplicable insight into the processes and meanings that sustain and motivate

social groups” (Herbert, 2000: 550). Crang (2002) noted that semi-structured interviews had become “the new orthodoxy” in human geography (see Maller and Strengers [2017] for a more recent reflection on this), with the relative lack of

ethnographic methods “limiting studies since this is one of the approaches in qualitative work that can address the non-discursive and study what people do as

well as what they say” (Ibid: 650; see also Crang, 2003).

Reflecting an injunction to “follow people and objects in action as they move”

(Lorimer, 2005: 89), the method most fitting for the approach of NRT has often been termed 'observant participation', in contrast to the ethnographic tradition of 'participant observation' (Cadman, 2009; Dewsbury, 2010; Vannini, 2015). As such, a congruence exists with other ethnographic approaches, such as performative

ethnography, enactive ethnography (Wacquant, 2005, 2014), embodied/carnal ethnography (Dutkiewicz, 2015), and sensory ethnography (Pink, 2009).

Finding its roots in the early 20th _{century anthropological studies of scholars such}

as Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown, ethnographic case studies are “the study of

social interactions, behaviours, and perceptions that occur within groups, teams,

organisations, and communities” (Reeves et al., 2008: n.p.; see also Blatter, 2008). While originally (and sometimes still) focused on the description of a community

of ‘exotic Others’, taking the researcher far from their home environment,

ethnographers have, at least since the Chicago School of urban sociologists, also focused their attention on sites closer to home (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007). The key features of ethnographic research, as conventionally understood, are described by Reeves et al. (2008: 1020) as follows:

A strong emphasis on exploring the nature of a particular social phenomenon, rather than setting out to test hypotheses about it.

A tendency to work primarily with “unstructured data” —

that is, data that have not been coded at the point of data collection as a closed set of analytical categories.

Investigation of a small number of cases (perhaps even just one case) in detail.

Analysis of data that involves explicit interpretation of the meanings and functions of human actions; the product of this analysis primarily takes the form of verbal descriptions and explanations.

The traditional tool of the ethnographer has been the field diary, though today the use of ethnography often involves a plurality of tools, such as observational notes, (structured and semi-structured) interviews, as well as analysis of other sources including documents, pictures, audio-visual materials, and artefacts (Eberle and Maeder, 2010; Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007). Furthermore, in line with the methodological discussions above, ethnographic research “does not rely solely on

what people say about their lives in an interview or on what is reported in documents – rather such data are treated with caution” (Ibid: 55). Instead, as Stewart (2017: 192) has recently noted, ethnographic writings allow the tentative

description of “collective states and sensibilities hitting people and traversing

otherwise incommensurate things: bodies of thought, assemblages of infrastructures and institutions, new ecologies, the rhythms of a daily living, and the strangely connective tissue produced by handheld devices and social media.”

My organisational ethnography takes a multi-sited case study approach, examining one or more instances of a phenomenon or topic in detail (Blatter, 2008). Flyvbjerg (2011: 302) has highlighted a paradox in terms of such case study research whereby it is simultaneously widely-used and “generally held in low regard”. With regard to this low regard, however, Flyvbjerg addresses five misunderstandings of case study research including, for example, that “theoretical knowledge is more valuable than concrete case knowledge” or that “the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses; that is, in the first stage of a total research process, while other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing

and theory building” (Ibid.). The strength of my focus on cases, however, “is that it can “close in” on real-life situations and test views directly in relation to

phenomena as they unfold in practice” (Ibid: 309; see also Boddy, 2016), also addressing Hielscher and Smith’s (2014: 24) observation that “studies that look

across several community-based digital fabrication workshops…are still scarce.”

Given the nature of organisational ethnography, it contrasts with the somewhat lengthier immersion of the researcher in a ‘traditional,’or ‘indigenous’ community

which characterised earlier ethnographic studies. In organisational ethnography,

the researcher “can work regular hours…It is even possible – and common practice

– to enter the field only sporadically, to move in for short periods and to move out

again” (Ibid: 57). The emerging constellation of sub-methods (McKechnie, 2008) I used during this immersion included direct observation and participation in

everyday activities, alongside formal and informal interviewing, and documentary analysis (including web presences and mailing list archives).

For the wellbeing aspect of the research, the value and multidimensionality of ethnography seems particularly opportune in the context of critiques made in Section 2.3. In 2016, for example, the UK Government, through Public Health England and in association with the University of Winchester, released a guidance document entitled ‘Arts for health and wellbeing: an evaluation framework’.31 While not mentioning ethnography – the study highlights mainly questionnaire- based tools for assessing wellbeing – the primary mid-activity observation tool outlined is the arts observations scale (ArtsObs, Figure 10), described as “a non- intrusive tool that is capable of capturing quantitative and qualitative data from participants who are not able to complete questionnaires without interfering with

or diminishing the effects of the creative arts process taking place.” While allowing

some qualitative data capture, the ArtsObs assumes an almost omniscient and separated observer utilising relatively shallow tools such as that shown below, through which participants are rated before and after the activity.

Figure 10: Art Observation Tool. Source: http://www.cwplus.org.uk/assets/pdf/Manual.pdf [Accessed 01/02/17]

By instead placing the researcher-participant in the midst of social sites, enactive ethnographic field work can allow for greater sensitivity, not only to discursive

31 _{https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/arts -for-health-and-wellbeing-an-evaluation-} framework [Accessed 01/02/17]

interactions, but also to the ineffable, the tacit, the affective and the haptic (Crang, 2002; Paterson, 2009; Schatzki, 2012). Schatzki (2012: 24) too places ethnographic methods at the forefront of attempts to understand practices in social life, noting

“There is no formal or mathematical or computer-based method that can get at these matters. There is no alternative to hanging out with, joining in with, talking

to and watching, and getting together the people concerned.”

This section has discussed how social scientists have grappled with the challenge to traditional qualitative research posed by recent work foregrounding non- representational aspects of social life. It made the argument that some methods are more suited to the objectives of the research project, and highlighted the potential of ethnography in this respect. In particular, enactive organisational ethnography was selected, in the hope that the practice of making could be “both a means and object of insight” (Spinney, quoted in Dutkiewicz, 2015: 28). Having discussed this broader rationale for my choice of methods, I shall now describe the research stages in more detail, starting with the selection of cases.