‘Doing intimacy’ in a public market: how the gendered experience of ethnography reveals situated social dynamics

Abstract

This article considers the way in which gender gains significance during ethnographic research to reveal situated social dynamics. As a female ethnographer in a male-dominated setting, I map my own movement and interaction through the field setting over time to show how my 'practice of ethnography' becomes, as it also reveals, a 'practice of intimacy'. I pay critical attention to the physical realities of the field setting as they structure patterns of interaction, such that three seemingly simple actions, 'hollering', 'kicking it', and 'walking', emerge as highly consequential practices through which people construct, experience, and protect intimacy in public space. Following the 'ethnography' into the 'discovery', this article pushes the potential of reflexivity to illuminate the way in which multiple gendering processes unfold and become interrelated.

Sexual Harassment and the Construction of Ethnographic Knowledge

“…As they measured and evaluated their experiences in the field, participants in our study (and here we include ourselves) frequently turned to particular narratives that narrowly define what counts as valid data, even though these leave little room to understand and articulate the embodied paths by which data are gathered. As others have noted, ethnographic training still tends to overlook the ways in which gender and sexuality not only shape our work but also constitute it throughout our time in the field (Newton ; Orrico ). Indeed, for much of their history, ethnography and sociology more generally have not recognized or provided a vocabulary through which to discuss gender, sexuality, and embodiment as issues centrally important to the production of ethnographic knowledge for all researchers.…”

“…Rather than tips and strategies for dealing with harassment in the field, our central concern has been what the obfuscation of gender, sexuality, race, and embodiment in fieldwork means for the construction of ethnographic knowledge. The delegitimation of sexualized and gendered interactions as constitutive of our fieldwork and data has promoted a “fiction of a genderless self,” contributing to a disembodied presentation of research and further obscuring the fact that the heterosexual male body remains the default in research (Orrico :475; see also Moreno and Newton ). It encouraged our participants, concerned with meeting a standard of validity based on an experience that is not their own, to relegate these interactions to awkward surplus, perpetuating the notion that the identities that set the researcher apart from those they study must be shed at the beginning of any worthwhile project.…”

“…Although intimacy can lead to nuanced and sophisticated understandings of our research subjects, a universal valorization of intimacy in the field can put both researchers and the researched in harm's way. In part, this is related to breaking down the barriers between the researcher and research participant (Gailey and Prohaska ; Gatrell ; Orrico ; Stacey ). Indeed, some participants reported that it was their closest research relationships that put them in the most uncomfortable situations.…”

“…Indeed, some participants reported that it was their closest research relationships that put them in the most uncomfortable situations. Moreover, the emphasis on the body as a tool with which ethnographers can achieve intimacy elides the different hardships researchers will encounter precisely due to what their particular bodies signify (Kloß ; Orrico ). For example, all researchers will face certain dangers when they decide to sleep on the street or check into a city shelter to study the homeless.…”

Methodological Awareness in Feminist Research: Reclaiming Experiences of Hostility in Workplace Studies

“…By uncovering the gendered power relations that play out through the researcher-researched relationship (see also Letherby & Zdrodowski, 1995), I attempt to analyze workplace performances and their role in reproducing the gender order in male-dominated workplaces. Drawing on short-term ethnography and my reflexive encounters with research participants, this article shows how women are treated as disrespected others in these workplaces (see also Griffin, 2012;Orrico, 2015).…”