Ethnography: perspective and practice 56

This research is guided in its use of the ethnographic approach by the methodological reflection in anthropology (Malinowski, 1922; Clifford, 1988; Marcus, 1998; Geertz, 2008). The founder of modern ethnography, Malinowski (1922) described it as being a well-suited research technique for gaining an understanding of a specific group of people or society, from the inside (Malinowski, 1961). The

expression 'to grasp the native’s point of view' (Malinowski, 1922, p. 25) defined the ethnographer’s goal as 'to realize the native’s vision of the world'. I am aware that it is not entirely possible to fully acquire participants’ perspectives – but only an understanding as intimate as possible of the phenomena investigated- nonetheless, I believe this is an important aim to pursue.

My interest in Malinowski’s point of view lies in the way he made his experience of research a basis for self-reflection on his ethnographic methodology. Ethnography is premised on researchers immersing themselves, as deeply as possible, into the social and cultural field in which the research takes place, participating in the local life of the people explored. To this day, this is considered the basis of ethnographic fieldwork: participant observation.

Participant observation is founded on an inductive approach to research and implies a direct engagement with social and cultural reality, building a series of trust relationships over time with the group of people under investigation. To establish an authentic relationship with the group of people, Malinowski ‘lived as a native, among the natives for many months together, watching them daily at work and at play, conversing with them in their own tongue, and deriving all his information from the surest sources – personal observation and statements made to him directly by the natives’ (Frazer in Malinowski, 1922, p. 2).

I acknowledge that the traditional gaze on the ‘native’ has become a controversial topic of discussion among anthropologists (Rabinow et al., 1986; Clifford, 1988; Marcus, 1998; Geertz, 2008). This debate is concerned with the analytics, aesthetics and politics of ethnography in reducing the ethnographic authority, as it no longer fits within the model for the study of a culture (Gupta and Ferguson, 1997). Therefore, my position in the field was also very much influenced by abandoning positivist wisdom, traditionally attributed to the role of the observer. Instead, as established in anthropology, the researcher and participants are recognised as being equally involved in the production of knowledge (Geertz, 2008). This is in line with the critiques of the ‘old’ orthodoxy, that acknowledged subjectivity in the production of knowledge and the importance of reflexive attention, claiming for the authorial status of the ethnographer in the field (Geertz and Marcus, 1986). Therefore, I conceive ethnography as a process of writing about a culture (Geertz, 2008) and I sought to avoid the process of distancing the ‘other’ (Fabian, 2014). I conceived data as

generated through the encounter between the researcher and the participants, as situated in the social and cultural context in which the ethnographic encounter took place (Hastrup, 1987; Tedlock, 1991; Hastrup, 1992). I believe that ‘self' and the 'other' are inextricably involved in a dialectical process (Fabian, 1990). Consequentially, in line with theories on gender studies, I adopt the idea that a conception of the neutrality of the ethnographer in the field, must be abandoned (Conaway, 1986); as the researcher's activities in the field, from a subjective perspective, are part of the reality that it is intended to be studied (Clifford, 1988). Therefore, the ethnographer is a positioned subject (Rosaldo, 1984) in conversation with people in the field.

Drawing on the anthropological tradition of ethnography in this research, I also adopt the constructivist way of generating meanings to attribute to reality, alongside research participants (Andrews, 2012). This refers to the fact that meanings and experiences are socially constructed, produced and reproduced during the course of the research encounters, as generated by people in conversation with each other. The conversation is a product of the historically contingent, socio-cultural context in which this take place. This has become a key focus of academic attention, in particular in qualitative research on migration (Ganga and Scott, 2006) when the researcher is considered an ‘insider’, such as sharing similar cultural, linguistic, and national heritage – as I discuss in section 3.5. Thus, to grasp individual meanings attributed to reality according to the participants’ perspective, I adopt ethnography as my goal is to provide rich and detail insights into people’s views, actions, stories, and daily life. In Rowles (1987) migration is theorized as embedded in a larger life context and ethnographic methods has been identified as the best way to access the meaning and experiences of places amongst older people.

Cutchin (2001) emphasize the qualitative (ethnographic) methodologies for the study on the relationship between older people and places, defining these as ‘necessary to assess and understand the problematic situation and place integration process for different elders living in varied places’ (p.41). As also argued by scholars on geographical gerontology, ethnography enable detail insights on life-course approach to personal history (Skinner et al., 2017). In line with these scholarship perspectives, I adopt the ethnographic method of research as the more widely considered the most appropriate to access the nexus between the meanings and experiences of places amongst older Italians in Newcastle.

It is generally agreed amongst ethnographers that in order to explore

‘the extent to which the researcher actually participates in social events and actually performs social acts depends hugely on the nature of the research site, and within it, the nature of the activities being undertaken at any given time’ (Atkinson and Pugsley, 2005, p. 231).

Hammersley (2006) in seeking to further define this methodology, draws on a combination of formal techniques during the ethnography fieldwork, consisting of

‘fairly lengthy contact, through participant observation in relevant settings, and/or through relatively open-ended interviews designed to understand people’s perspectives, perhaps complemented by the study of various sorts of documents – officially, publicly available, or personal’ (Hammersley, 2006, p. 4).

The duration of various research encounters undertaken during ethnographic fieldwork may vary considerably, depending on the nature of the daily life activities of interest and the developing rapport between researcher and participants. Ethnographers’ participate in informants’ everyday lives across a wide range of everyday practices, specific to the group being studied, as a way of knowing other people’s ways of being, and treating these experiences with reflexive attention. The length of fieldwork in ethnographic study depends upon the complexity of the setting, the researcher’s familiarity with it, and the degree of information saturation that the researcher seeks (Atkinson and Pugsley, 2005).

Semi-structured, open-ended interviews are an important element of participant observation. These are usually characterised by employing a

‘conversational tone and structure. Questions are not posed in a predetermined order, nor are they necessarily couched in standardized formats’ (Atkinson and Pugsley, 2005, p. 231)

The ethnographer draws on a growing sense of what is important in the lives of people he or she is working with to ask more meaningful and relevant questions about the topic of research as the work develops.

Part of the ethnographic documentation is constituted by fieldnotes taken throughout the fieldwork process, which are:

‘detailed and concrete reconstructions of what was said and done’ (Atkinson and Pugsley, 2005, p. 231).

This is in addition to memories, thoughts, impressions, and topics of conversations that the ethnographer engages in with research participants. The researcher can complement these sources through the study of various sorts of official, publicly available, or personal documents (Hammersley, 2006).

Being that ethnography is an on-going process, involving the negotiation of relations and the interaction between the social actors, the levels of intimacy and disclosures of narratives, degrees of thoughts and point of views shared, depend upon the social relationship established between ethnographer and informants. Therefore, the relation-building process is considered to be part of the fieldwork process, and in this study these will be taken into consideration for further analysis. Similarly, since both the researcher and the participants are involved in the process of meanings construction (through sharing perspectives, everyday life, experiences, thoughts, believes, representations), the experience of social interaction will be treated with reflexive attention, together with participants’ motivations, expectations and interpretations related to the research project.