Using the once familiar to make the familiar strange once again: engaging with historical inquiry and autobiography in contemporary ethnographic research

Abstract

This article builds on Delamont's strategies for fighting familiarity, particularly her argument that ethnographers need to revisit educational ethnographies of the past. (Delamont, Atkinson and Pugsley 2010) The article argues that wider historical accounts, from both inside and outside of education, can also cultivate the sociological imagination in this way. Inspired by feminist historical inquiry the author will demonstrate how she has used history (historical research and feminist autobiography) to make the 'familiarity' of contemporary girlhood 'strange'. The article will draw on examples from the author's own experience of interpreting and representing the lives and experiences of girls in elite educational settings, to show how this subject, which was once considered strange, can become all too familiar and thus prey to historical amnesia. An argument is made here for the need for strategies which help us fight familiarity in our interpretations and theorisations of the lives of those we study. The article suggests that historical accounts represent one way in which we can bring an openness and playfulness to this process, in order to question the self-evidence of what we see.

From ‘the New Man’ to care‐leaver activists—Communist and contemporary discourses shaping 50 years of leaving care in Romania

“…This ‘dinosaur discourse’ (Allan, 2018, p. 545) is powerfully shaping the views of a diversity of commentators and is likely to assimilate new workers (Alexandrescu, 2019). This narrative is circulated through repetitive writing, with a persistent tendency to foreground perceived shortcomings of the individual while marginalizing acknowledged systemic barriers.…”

Introduction: using qualitative research methods for educational research

“…Scholars, we believe, should make informed choices to suit their research questions from the range of available methods we have showcased in this volume. Second, 'educational' research should never be synonymous with doing studies in schools (see Allen, 2018). Teaching and learning take place in many settings, inside and beyond formal organisations (see Ward, 2018;Ward et al, 2017).…”