19. Ethnography
Paper
Critical Educational Ethnography: Negotiating Access at the Level of the Official, Informal and Physical School
Linda Maria Laaksonen
University of Helsinki, Finland
Presenting Author: Laaksonen, Linda Maria
The role of an ethnographer in a school is complex and engaging in ethnography ethically requires reflexivity and positional awareness. The researcher holds power in many ways, but when it comes to access to the field school, it needs to be sensitively negotiated and should not be taken for granted (see e.g. Atkinson, Coffey & Delamont 2003). This presentation explores a methodological challenge of what are the frames given to long-term critical ethnographic fieldwork and knowledge production today and what is the position of a researcher in the changing landscape of research, where most of the research is expected to be fast-paced and controlled projects. Our interest in the methodological challenge discussed in this presentation was sparked by an episode in 2018 when we were negotiating access to one of our field schools. The new European general data protection regulation (GDPR) had just been implemented and due to that the municipal office granting research permissions to educational institutions asked us to fill out a form where we should write down “everything we were possibly planning to observe at the field school”. The official negotiations related to access seem to have become more regulated and restrictive and seem somewhat incompatible with the ethical questions related to ethnographic research and the nature of critical knowledge production.
To analyse the multi-layered dynamics of negotiating access to the everyday life of the ethnographic field schools and producing critical ethnographic research we use Gordon, Holland and Lahelma’s (2000, p. 53) three levels of schooling: the official school, the informal school, and the physical school and consider how access is negotiated on all three intersecting levels. The official school consists, for example, the documented research permissions whereas the informal level of the school captures the everyday negotiations of access when we for example asked if we can attend certain classes. The physical school covers possibilities and limitations offered by the school building considering also limitations set to moving, talking and being at the school.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedIn this presentation, we draw from two ethnographic studies focusing on questions of educational choices and the societal inclusion of young people in general upper secondary education in the Helsinki metropolitan area. We have produced ethnographic data in two general upper secondary schools during the years 2016–2020. Our approach to the field in this study was inspired by multi-sited ethnography (Lahelma et al., 2014). By multi-sited, we mean that we understand the ethnographic field as layered, that it stretches from a certain time and institution towards the wider societal context of the research (Marcus, 1995). The data produced in separate ethnographic studies were analysed jointly.
During the fieldwork, we participated in and observed the everyday life of the schools, school events, meetings and lessons for all age groups. Our broad interest was in making sense of what happens in the schools’ everyday life and how people make sense of it. We focused especially on the messy everyday discrepancies between saying and doing. As for qualitative ethnographic analysis (e.g. Coffey & Atkinson, 1996), the data was coded thematically and then analysed in a dialogue with the theoretical concept of three levels of schooling (Gordon et. al., 2000). We also used elements of discourse analysis (Bacchi, 2000) focusing on how certain discourses limit or allow access.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe preliminary results of our analysis illustrate how the negotiations related to access to the level of official school were just a starting point to negotiating our access to the everyday life of the schools. The most important negotiations seemed to happen on the unofficial level when communicating with the students and the teachers in situations like asking permission to follow a certain lesson or to participate in different activities at the school. Access to the ethnographic field is never fixed but constantly re-negotiated (see Lappalainen et. al., 2007). In the everyday life of schools, there are certain hierarchies and roles, such as teacher and student, but no ready-made position for a researcher. Spending time with both students and teachers illustrated the ambivalence of our position as we often had access to both spaces used by only teachers and spaces used by only students. (see Gordon, Holland, Lahelma & Tolonen, 2005.) However, as we were not students nor did we have keys to the school, like the teachers had, we always needed to negotiate our access also at the level of a physical school (Gordon et al., 2000). As the negotiations happen simultaneously on many different levels the official regulations related to research permissions seem to fail to recognise them: official research permissions for example only cover the official school area, but boundaries of the ethnographic field are not strictly bound to the school building itself and the position of a researcher does not disappear when encountering people from the field school at the nearby bus stop.
ReferencesAtkinson, P., Coffey, A., & Delamont, S. (2003). Key themes in qualitative research: Continuities and changes. Rowman Altamira.
Gordon, T., Holland, J., & Lahelma, E. (2000). Making spaces: Citizenship and difference in schools. Springer.
Gordon, T., Holland, J., Lahelma, E., & Tolonen, T. (2005). Gazing with intent: ethnographic practice in classrooms. Qualitative Research, 5(1), 113-131.
Lahelma, E., Lappalainen, S., Mietola, R., & Palmu, T. (2014). Discussions that ‘tickle our brains’: Constructing interpretations through multiple ethnographic data-sets. Ethnography and Education, 9(1), 51-65.
Lappalainen, S., Hynninen, P., Kankkunen, T., Lahelma, E., & Tolonen, T. (2007). Etnografia metodologiana: lähtökohtana koulutuksen tutkimus. [Ethnography as a methodology: researching education]
Marcus, G. E. (1995). Ethnography in/of the world system: The emergence of multi-sited ethnography. Annual review of anthropology, 24(1), 95-117.
19. Ethnography
Paper
‘Outermost’ Community Resilience: The Carnival of Terceira Island (Azores, Portugal) as a Case for Inclusive Peripheral Participation
Andrea Marcelli
Università degli Studi Niccolò Cusano, Italy
Presenting Author: Marcelli, Andrea
Ecopedagogy (Gadotti, 2010) is a paradigm that overcomes mentalistic accounts of education by stressing on informal education processes(Misiaszek, 2015). Given ecopedagogy’s declared focus on sustainable growth and supra-individual processes, cultural heritage is regarded as pivotal to both understand how communities interact with the environment and what fosters the growth of resilient communities.
Drawing on the above paradigmatic assumptions, this paper showcases the results of an ethnographic inquiry concerning the Carnival of Terceira Island (Azores, Portugal). The intensity and peculiarity of such heritage phenomenon places it in a special place with regards to other instances of European folklore (Marcelli et al., 2022). In addition to a more ‘classic’ ethnographic survey, however, a question is raised concerning the way this specific Carnival plays a role in producing feedback processes that ensure community bonding, an opportunity to review current communal practice, and in general, as a powerhouse for competence development among all generations of islanders.
By focusing not on individual learning but on supra-individual processes, a new understanding of Lave and Wenger’s (1991) notion of peripheral participation is achieved, which provides a strong explanatory framework for what is going on during Terceira’s Carnival. As of 2020–2022, the island community shows the ability to place itself at its own periphery—not in the geographical sense, but in the developmental one. Thematic analysis of collected ethnographic data show that Terceira achieves a type of intentional ‘ontological displacement’ that creates a fictionalized distance with its current self. This, in turn, triggers shared processes of revision that result in increased resilience and ability to tackle global and local challenges with both humour and a sense of purpose.
As a consequence of the above, we maintain that Terceira’s Carnival constitutes a major example of shared learning that extends its benefits to members of the island community at large. Furthermore, it does also act as a dispositif that enables the self-directed change (hence, education) of the whole community, which, thanks to the pursuit of Carnival’s collective goals, puts itself in a position to negotiate its role in the World.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedData were collected during three fieldwork stays in Terceira Island (Azores, Portugal), which took place between 2020 and 2022. Direct observation of the Carnival took the shape of rapid appraisals, after the methodology outlined by Ellsberg and Heise (2005). Data from the Author’s ethnographic journal were later validated through interviews with 11 ‘culture experts’ and a collective writing activity that involved six scholars (2 foreigners, 3 Terceiran natives, and 1 non-Terceiran Azorean native). The resulting process matches with Murtagh’s (2007) description of a “critical quasi-ethnographic approach” and benefits from the positive impact of convenience sampling as described by Etikan et al. (2016). Finally, collected data were subject to a further iteration, constituted by a thematic analysis (see Guest et al., 2012).
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsResults show that the Carnival of Terceira Island is a Foucauldian dispositif (Bussolini, 2010) that ensures peripheral participation in the sense understood by Lave and Wenger (1991). Furthermore, when focus shifts from individuals to the whole island community, Carnival retains its impact of peripheral participatory practice. As such, it fosters the ability of Terceiran people to tackle the challenges of globalization, internationalization, and localization processes (Dicken, 2011)—which constitute both opportunities and stressors for the islanders. The feedback processes involved in the Carnival do for the community what evaluation does for the individual.
Such interpretation of Terceira’s Carnival casts intangible cultural heritage as an educational dispositif, whose current purpose takes a different path from the one that was previously highlighted by historians who dealt with the topic (e.g., Enes, 1998). It is yet to be established, however, whether such dispositif stems from post-modern dynamics or if it rather constitutes a special case of ‘intentional Narrenschiff’ (for the concept, see Foucault, 1961), whose existence ensures an affordable type of ontological displacement whose long-term effect, however, is that of reinforcing the status quo.
ReferencesBussolini, J. (2010). What is a Dispositive? Foucault Studies, 10, 85. https://doi.org/10.22439/fs.v0i10.3120
Dicken, P. (2011). Global shift: Mapping the changing contours of the world economy (6th ed). Guilford Press.
Ellsberg, M. C., & Heise, L. (2005). Researching Violence Against Women: A Practical Guide for Researchers and Activists. World Health Organization, PATH. https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/violence/9241546476/en/
Enes, C. (1998). O Carnaval na Vila Nova. Salamandra.
Etikan, I., Musa, S. A., & Alkassim, R. S. (2016). Comparison of Convenience Sampling and Purposive Sampling. American Journal of Theoretical and Applied Statistics, 5(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajtas.20160501.11
Foucault, M. (1961). Folie et déraison: Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique (1st ed.). Plon.
Gadotti, M. (2010). A Carta da Terra na educação. Editoria e Livraria Instituto Paulo Freire. http://acervo.paulofreire.org:8080/xmlui/handle/7891/2812
Guest, G., MacQueen, K., & Namey, E. (2012). Applied Thematic Analysis. SAGE Publications, Inc. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483384436
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press.
Marcelli, A. M., Sousa, F., Fonseca, J., Silva, L. S. da, Melotti, M., & Costa, S. G. (2022). The Unknown Carnival of Terceira Island (Azores, Portugal): Community, Heritage, and Identity on Stage. Sustainability, 14(20), 13250. https://doi.org/10.3390/su142013250
Misiaszek, G. W. (2015). Ecopedagogy and Citizenship in the Age of Globalisation: Connections Between Environmental and Global Citizenship Education to Save the Planet. European Journal of Education, 50(3), 280–292. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejed.12138
Murtagh, L. (2007). Implementing a Critically Quasi-Ethnographic Approach. The Qualitative Report, 12(2), 193–215.
|
