Recalibrating scale, rupturing coloniality: On relational ethnography and its postcolonial reckonings

Taking as its point of departure extant concerns about the Eurocentric nature of sociological knowledge production, and its inadequacy in dealing with questions of race, power, and coloniality, this article examines the hitherto unexplored significance of relational ethnography for postcolonial inquiry. It traces the critical coordinates of a relational turn in ethnography, endorsing how a recalibration of scale, and a commitment to crafting sociological analyses around multiple points of vantage, can support a decentring of Western ontologies which have long defined the narratives threads of history and social theory. The reflexive exposition that follows invokes my fieldwork experiences in Ghana, West Africa, to illustrate how a relational praxis (re)animated by postcolonial theory can at once rupture those hegemonic arrangements of knowledge-power that have long undergirded imperial frames of modernity, and reconstitute future narratives that speak to the relational entanglements which bind the tied fates of the postcolonial North and South.

Getting lost to be found: the insider–outsider paradoxes in relational ethnography

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to draw on the direct experience of a practitioner undertaking real-time research in his organization to offer insights into the dual role of practical insider and theoretical outsider. The duality helps the researcher to live “in” and think “out” of the research context to develop a theory for practice and then transpose it to a practice for theory through the collaboration of an external theoretical insider.Design/methodology/approachThis is a theoretical account of the reflexive experience of the practitioner reintroducing relational ethnography, where the researcher regards processes and spaces as the objects of analysis rather than bounded groups and places. It emphasizes the relational significance of the researcher, researched, and theoretical insider in exploring the structures of relations and meanings in the field of professional practice.FindingsThe paper argues that understanding the complementariness and paradoxes of the dual role helps the researcher to identify knowledge gaps and contest commonsense knowledge in search of critical knowledge and theoretical insights. The transition between the bounded (restrained) and unbounded (unrestrained) selves occurs in the holding space of research, influencing the position from which the researcher views himself, his subjects, and his social world.Originality/valueThe paper extends the dimension of ethnographic research, which de-centers the authority and control of the researcher to that of the relationship between the researcher and informants, by focusing on the relational significance between the researcher, researched, and theoretical insider. This perspective gives rise to a deeper understanding of relational ethnography, seen largely in sociological research, as relevant to organizational research, where structures of relations and actions explored in real time could account for the configuration, conflict, and coordination of work practices.

The Threat of Ambiguity: Risk and Faith in Relational Ethnography and Interdisciplinary Dialogue

Mary Douglas has identified the discomfort people feel in circumstances of ambiguity. For social groups, both informal and institutionalized, the wish for what Douglas calls “hard lines and clear concepts” (1966:200) can create in-groups that are self-referential and oppressive. While boundaries are integral to any community, I suggest that social groups must interact with one another with a sense of ontological permeability that is rooted in dialogical relationship in order to both transcend and affirm their boundaries appropriately. The same is true between ethnographers and those they study. In this paper, I will draw on a conversation I had with several young Norwegian Christians I interviewed during field research conducted at the Grimstad Bible School in Southern Norway to illustrate how reflexive ethnography and transcultural dialogue can be conducted with a sense of both risk and faith. I will also argue that both ethnographic work and interdisciplinary discourse can benefit from creating permeable boundaries, and that in order to do so, academics from all disciplines will need to let go of the myth of objective reporting and embrace the possibility of finding a sense of what John Milbank would call moving from “unity to difference” and back.