The purpose of the present study is to conceptualize engagement as both theoretical and methodological in relation to social movements. Theoretically, engagement is seen as central to activism and is addressed as a complex ontological and teleological phenomenon in relation to social movements. Methodologically, engagement is addressed in terms of (a) the role of the researcher, (b) the perspective espoused by the researcher, (c) how and why the researcher enters into and enacts with the cultural phenomenon, (d) how the researcher tends to the subjects and (e) how the researcher presents the story. This methodological approach is referred to as engaged ethnography. The main story (and history) of the contemporary antisweatshop movement as well as embedded stories of the movement, especially as they unfold at Purdue University (e.g., stories of the researcher’s background, and stories surrounding various strategies like, hunger strikes, bringing activists from the Dominican Republic to campus, and giving yellow roses to the president, or not) are provided and discussed according to the concept of engagement.
Unsettling Neoliberal Rationalities: Engaged Ethnography and the Meanings of Responsibility in the Dominican Republic and Mexico
