Beskrivelse
Abtract:Class at stake when doing ethnographic fieldwork
The aim of this paper is to investigate how we can grasp the subjective dimensions of class when doing ethnographic fieldwork including interviews and participant observations.
Background
Since the 1990th class as a category of difference has been marginalized from the (post-) feministic theories focusing on identity construction. But as Skeggs rhetorically asks: “Is it that for those who now get to write and represent feminist (and) cultural theory class is not experienced or felt as immediately as gender?” Skeggs also suggests an answer: “It may not be recognized as a problem for those who have the privilege to ignore it.” So the sociologically claim of the decline of the classes, could also be regarded as a symptom of a middle class hegemony.
After “the swinging 90th” with “free identity construction” there is, however, a tendency to revitalize the concept of class. Following “The English School” of poststructuralist, feminist and empirical researchers focusing on class as identity and culture, who insists that class has to be investigated empirically, I have conducted an ethnographic fieldwork among new school-parents at three different Danish schools from August to December 2013, as the parents were involved in their child start at preschool.
In Scandinavia however the new attention on class is facing a special challenge cf. a strong ideology of equality and the status of the welfare state as common sense. We need to adjust the theories, taking into account, that class in a Scandinavian context is not a part of peoples articulated self-identification, all though, as I have found, class in deed does influence on subjectivity along with other categories.
The paper will present a range of empirical examples, taking a point of departure in the following methodological considerations:
• Not being able to just go and ask about class, and not expecting people to just “tell it like it is”, I tried to bring the everyday conversation into the research, using a multi-sited approach with varying degrees of participation.
• I became aware of the different ways, that the participants were approaching me – the white, female academic researcher – which required that I had to take a good look at the context and that I began to view disruptions and distractions, not as methodological problems, but rather as sources of valuable data. This also made it possible not just to view class as something attached to “the others”, but as something with strong influence on constructing the privileged, unmarked norm.
• I also had some experiencers of being affected, so I wanted to take my own emotions as a source of data to interpret.
The paper will discuss the different methodological approaches, I used in my attempts to get a rich analytical material and how the different methods produces different class-insights.
Se også artiklen: "Oh! Iben's Here Now, So We Better Behave Properly"—The Production of Class as Morality in Research Encounters DOI: https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-18.3.2752
| Periode | 5 nov. 2014 |
|---|---|
| Begivenhedstitel | Voices in Nordic Gender Research: NORA conference 2014 |
| Begivenhedstype | Konference |
| Placering | Roskilde, DanmarkVis på kort |
| Grad af anerkendelse | International |