Proxy-produced ethnographic work: what are the problems, issues, and dilemmas arising from proxy-ethnography?

TY - JOUR

T1 - Proxy-produced ethnographic work

T2 - what are the problems, issues, and dilemmas arising from proxy-ethnography?

AU - Martinussen, Marie

AU - Højbjerg, Karin

AU - Tamborg, Andreas Lindenskov

PY - 2018/1/2

Y1 - 2018/1/2

N2 - This article addresses the implications of researcher-student cooperation in the production of empirical material. For the student to replace the experienced researcher and work under the researcher’s supervision, we call such work proxy-produced ethnographic work. Although there are clear advantages, the specific relations and positions arising from such a set-up between the teacher/researcher and the proxy ethnographer/student are found to have implications for the ethnographies produced. This article’s main focus is to show how these relations and positions have shifted the focus of the ethnographic work and in some way have distorted the ethnographies in certain ways. It is shown how the participating researchers have distinctive, incorporated dispositions with which they pre-consciously participate in an implicit and subtle relation that can make it easy to overlook the distortions during the research process. These ethnographic distortions are generated within a framework drawn primarily on the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.

AB - This article addresses the implications of researcher-student cooperation in the production of empirical material. For the student to replace the experienced researcher and work under the researcher’s supervision, we call such work proxy-produced ethnographic work. Although there are clear advantages, the specific relations and positions arising from such a set-up between the teacher/researcher and the proxy ethnographer/student are found to have implications for the ethnographies produced. This article’s main focus is to show how these relations and positions have shifted the focus of the ethnographic work and in some way have distorted the ethnographies in certain ways. It is shown how the participating researchers have distinctive, incorporated dispositions with which they pre-consciously participate in an implicit and subtle relation that can make it easy to overlook the distortions during the research process. These ethnographic distortions are generated within a framework drawn primarily on the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.

KW - ethnographic distortions

KW - Pierre Bourdieu

KW - Proxy-ethnographic work

KW - symbolic violence

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85009253244&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/17457823.2016.1277772

DO - 10.1080/17457823.2016.1277772

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85009253244

SN - 1745-7823

VL - 13

SP - 100

EP - 118

JO - Ethnography and Education

JF - Ethnography and Education

IS - 1

ER -