Longing to belong

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine distinctions between embeddedness and belonging in ethnographic fieldwork to make sense of a researcher's identity position in the field. Design/methodology/approach – A confessional ethnographic narrative was retrospectively crafted from field notes from a 12-month fieldwork period. This narrative is presented and critically discussed to problematize the author's remembered sense of place and temporality in the field. Findings – Regardless of whether a researcher “longs to belong” in the field, the paper finds that the research and the researcher belongs to the field. The temporality of an ethnographer's being in the field causes its inhabitants, the research participants to assign him/her a distinct and hybrid identity position. Research limitations/implications – It is recognized that the research presented is bound by nostalgia. However, such reflexive intersubjectivity must be accounted for in ethnography. The identity position of a researcher influences the research process and outcomes. And that identity is not at the discretion of the researcher. Originality/value – Adopting the trope of habitus and postcolonial principles, this research illustrates the criticality of reflexive intersubjectivity in ethnography to positioning the researcher as “Other,” not the research participants. For organizational ethnographers, and qualitative researchers more widely, to recognize this ethical consideration has consequences for how fieldwork is practiced and reported.

Alterity: The passion, politics, and ethics of self and scholarship

“…Being relegated to a corner is difficult to live with on a daily basis and does not help generate a strong identification with your home institution (Empson, 2013). As I will illustrate, despite trying to belong (Butcher, 2013), my “corner” status and being constituted as the “other” had both personal and political consequences in terms of my feelings of isolation and my career. Yet, despite this, I believe strongly that we can and should follow our passion because it is the basis for shaping our scholarly identity and for an inclusive and polyphonic organization studies.…”

Sensitivity to situated positionings: Generating insight into organizational change

“…By acknowledging and appreciating different researcher positionings in the field, we do not mean to prompt researchers to maximise research output by strategically manoeuvring in the field and constantly adjusting their identities. In fact, all three vignettes draw attention to the fact that the researcher’s positioning is not chosen by, or at the discretion of, the researcher – it is the participant that casts the researcher as ‘the other’ (Butcher, 2013). As such, rather than turning fieldworkers into shrewd manipulators, our analysis suggests that fieldworkers themselves must cultivate a reflexive awareness of the mixture of both achieved and ascribed identities in the field.…”

“…In ethnographic and other forms of fieldwork-based research, the emphasis is typically on establishing closeness to the field of study and developing a deep familiarity with other people’s lifeworlds. As Butcher (2013) explains: ‘The notion of embedding oneself in the field is accepted as a pre-requisite of any meaningful narrative produced by an ethnographer. It is what distinguishes this craft from other research approaches’ (p. 242).…”

“…This is, however, only half of the story. When reflecting on their fieldwork experiences, ethnographers tend to acknowledge that ‘embeddedness does not begin to describe the nuances of ethnographic fieldwork’ (Butcher, 2013: 242). Likewise, they recognise that ‘[m]arginality, detachment, self-reliance, and estrangement provide the distance that allows for the possibility that fresh ways to view and understand what is occurring in the place and time of study will emerge’ (Van Maanen, 2011: 230).…”

“…In fact, immersion may simultaneously be ethnography’s most significant strength and its major weakness. Seeing ethnographic research as a process of cultural learning that ‘ only deep immersion in the field can make possible’ (Watson, 2011: 206; emphasis added) may create a particular type of fieldworker, one that seeks communal belonging, desires to become ‘deeply rooted’, demonstrates a ‘longing to belong’ (Butcher, 2013: 247) and prioritises thinking ‘from within’ (Shotter, 2006) – that is, a type of researcher that may be slightly myopic. Organisational ethnographers typically set out to study day-to-day happenings in workplaces, assuming that much of the intriguing questions of organisational life are ‘hidden in ordinary exchanges of ordinary people on an ordinary sort of day’ (Ybema et al, 2009: 1).…”