Gazing Anew: The Shift From a Clinical Gaze to an Ethnographic Lens

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze ways of perceiving, knowing, and being with others while engaging in qualitative and ethnographic research. As occupational therapists acquire research expertise and embark on research trajectories, they bring their clinical legacy into the research arena. The ability to conduct qualitative and ethnographic projects may require a reconfiguration of the clinical gaze of occupational therapists. This transformation is complex and also involves acquiring and adopting a stance that alters relational and interpersonal processes and results in new ways of seeing and being. I draw upon experiences in training, mentoring, and supervising therapists who embark on ethnographic research, as well as my own research practices, to illustrate points of intersection and divergence between the clinical gaze and ethnographic lens. Artistic metaphors are also used to highlight aspects of the interactional and intersubjective processes intrinsic to ethnographic practices. I argue that ethnographers are continually evaluating and negotiating their stance in the field. The clinician who becomes an ethnographer faces unique challenges to his or her stance in the midst of moment to moment encounters as well as over time in the course of prolonged engagement.

Art in Occupational Therapy Education: An Exploratory Mixed-Methods Study of an Arts-Based Module

“…75). In delivery of care to people with complex occupational needs, there are typically multiple perspectives to be understood and incorporated into intervention, including those of family members and caregivers (Lawlor, 2003;Mattingly, 2010).…”

Nursing gaze as framework for nursing practice: a study from acute care settings in Korea, Norway and the USA

“…Lawlor's description of the gaze catches in specific ways the findings in this study. Lawler (13, p. 31) emphasizes the gaze's inter‐relation of theory and practice: ‘the eye is directed by an agenda that incorporates theoretical sensitivity toward where one might look, what one should see, what is foreground, where attention should linger’ (p. 31). Nursing gaze in this study was both what the nurses were looking for and where they looked, as Henderson (23) viewed the gaze as both a way of perceiving and where to look.…”

“…Freidson (10) uses clinical mentality , Foucault (11) clinical gaze , and Atkinson (12) clinical eye and rhetoric to describe modes of engagement in clinical situations. The metaphor of gaze will ‘indicate ways of knowing and perceiving, a particular stance towards the world’ (13, p. 30). Occupational therapists bring, as Lawler states it, their clinical legacy into their practice, and describe the gaze as a way of perceiving, as a central dimension in clinical reasoning.…”

“…Occupational therapists bring, as Lawler states it, their clinical legacy into their practice, and describe the gaze as a way of perceiving, as a central dimension in clinical reasoning. Atkinson (13, p. 47) states that ‘the production and reproduction of clinical knowledge or opinion are grounded in characteristic modes of perception and legitimization’. Good (14) describes how the medical students acquire a medical gaze through the learning and socializing processes in the course of their medical studies.…”

Mapping Out One’s Own Paths Toward Work: Focus on Experiences of Return to Work After Spinal Cord Injury

“…In collaboration with some of the participants, the first author agreed on situations for observations that were related to emerging topics. The method for observations was inspired by "hanging out" (98,147), which includes active participation in everyday situations. In study I this meant, for example eating together, making coffee, or visiting art or music studios.…”