Unplanned Ethnography

‘The reality, however, is that ethnographic work is not always orderly. It involves serendipity, creativity, being in the right place at the right or wrong time, a lot of hard work, and old- fashioned luck… as well the unplanned, sometimes chaotic, and always intriguing character of ethnographic research’ (Fetterman, 2010: 2).

Unplanned ethnography has been used by some scholars, leading to the production of books on topics that were written ‘like unintentional pregnancy’ (Stacey, 1998: 27). Other studies also emerge from fieldwork through unplanned ethnographic encounters, or ‘unplanned elements of… field experience’ (Bradburd, 1998: xiii). Gratton and Jones (2004) also argue, in the context of sports, that in ethnography, data collection is often unstructured and unplanned, due to the flexibility of the methodology (Gratton and Jones, 2004). What I am calling unplanned ethnography is based on a ‘series of unplanned ethnographic encounters which simply happen en route to the focal encounters intended to take place’ (Tomaselli, 2005: 8).

At the beginning of fieldwork, I had not intended to use ethnography. However, throughout my prolonged stay in Jordan, I found myself being exposed to narratives of Jordanian nationalism on a daily basis. And since narratives of Jordanian nationalism are a focus of this research, fieldwork turned into the study of the field. Not only that, but throughout my presence in Jordan, I met Circassians at work, on social occasions, and on the streets. This, in addition to other events I experienced while in the field, prompted me to start writing a research diary based on my observations of a daily life that I had for long a time taken for granted, but which became important after I had developed a sociological imagination.

‘The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals… it enables him [sic] to take into account how

individuals, in the welter of their daily experience, often become falsely conscious of their social positions’ (Wright Mills, 1959: 5).

By unplanned ethnography, I do not mean auto-ethnography, which switches the focus to the researcher as the subject of the research, and provides data in the form of an autobiographical narrative (Hesse-Biber and Leavy, 2006). Instead, I am suggesting an approach to fieldwork, which acknowledges that fieldwork is ‘personal, emotional, and identity work’ (Coffey, 1999: 1). It is an approach which takes into account the events researchers face during fieldwork, including difficulties, and feelings of exclusion, or inclusion, because in those events one can find data and answers to research questions.

Ethnography is very useful in terms of providing better understanding and greater insight through the research, it is also important for feminist researchers as it gives voice.

‘‘Giving voice’ was a mantra that was frequently evoked and ethnography was perfectly poised to provide the mechanism for doing so. Ethnography provided an excellent methodology for feminists, with its emphasis on experience and the words, voice and lives of the participants enabling… a ‘view from below’’ (Skeggs, 2001: 430).

The main feminist concerns around ethnography revolve around ‘the relationship between the knower and the known’ (Sanger, 2003: 30). Feminist methodologies are based on a rejection of the principle of ‘value-neutrality,’ and involve ‘a commitment to reflexivity’ (Roseneil, 1993: 180). This commitment is about rejecting dichotomies of the knower and the known, the researcher and the researched, and the subject and the object. It is about rejecting the exploitation of research participants (Roseneil, 1993), acknowledging our biases (Wolf, 1992), and avoiding the objectification of an ‘other’ through resorting to dialogic methods (Sanger, 2003, Wolf, 1992). Dialogic methods have been suggested by feminists because they give voice (Sanger, 2003); I would also argue that methods of interaction give voice and great insight.

Giving voice is one of the aims of this research, as it focuses on how people give meaning to and make sense of ethnicity and nationalism. For that reason, using an ethnographic approach throughout my encounters with the Circassians depended on dialogic methods of interaction, rather than observing and interpreting interaction. The terms ethnographic interaction and encounters are more comprehensive than dialogic methods, because through ethnography ‘we begin the ethnographic dialogue, the complex interactions and exchanges’ (Bruner, 1997: 272). Dialogue is also a form of interaction. This is because not only dialogue, but also interactions matter. Interaction might again pose the question of observing behaviours of ‘others’; however, in my defence I would say that one can find a balance between giving voice to people, as subjects of the research, and the observation of interactions. Nonetheless, my own interactions and exchanges within the state of Jordan are not based on dialogic methods of observation. In other words, I use both dialogic and observational interaction methods in this research. The dialogic methods of ethnography were used to give Circassians voice, and the non- dialogic observational methods were used to represent my own interactions and encounters with narratives imposed by the state of Jordan, through books of national and civic education, in addition to the ‘Jordan First’ campaign.

‘Hence, conversations and interviews are often indistinguishable from other forms of interaction and dialogue in field research settings. In literate societies the ethnographer may well draw on textual materials as sources of information and insight into how actors and institutions represent themselves and others’ (Atkinson et al., 2001: 5).

I recorded ethnographic data from the field in a research diary. This research diary was written in word documents, following any event, conversation, or relevant encounter in the field. The research diary, however, is not raw material, which only documents data from the field (Coffey, 1999); it contains a form of analysis as one tends to reflect on one’s own experiences in the field. The research diary in that sense was a ‘thinking place for me to write and reflect through the resistances, challenges

and problems that arose’ (Burke, 2002: 50). It included some form of preliminary analysis of ethnographic encounters, and not only narratives of events. Therefore, analysis had also taken place whilst in the field, and not only afterwards. But that sort of preliminary analysis also left room for reinterpretation and reflections, when reread and rewritten in a different context.

Wolf (1992) gives a very good example of how field notes and research diaries can be read differently depending on the context. In her book A Thrice-Told Tale, she draws attention to the fact that the writing of field stories depends to a great extent on the writing context, and the audience. Delamont (2002) also uses the dichotomy of home and away, home to refer to the academic community, and away to refer to fieldwork. I have found that a very useful guide in terms of my reinterpretation of field notes, especially as my stay in Jordan had been an intense and an emotional one. The rereading allowed me to explore more how the field experience had been very stressful. Delamont (2002) states,

‘In the fieldnotes one is angry, incompetent, racist, sexist, lazy, purblind, bigoted, naïve, frustrated, rude, tired, bored, scared and all the other things that cannot be allowed either to show to the respondents or to appear in the final, polished accounts of the work… Once the research is over, the notes are a concrete symbol of the work done, and very precious. They are an emblem not only of work done, but also of sacrifices made, risks taken and hardships endured’ (Delamont, 2002: 66).

The analysis was a critical stage for the research, and the writing of the research. The following section will discuss the data analysis techniques used in this research.