Proxy-produced ethnographic work: What are the problems, issues, and dilemmas arising from proxy-ethnography?

Marie Louise Martinussen, Karin Højbjerg, Andreas Lindenskov Tamborg

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

    Abstract

    This article addresses the implications of researcher-student cooperation in the production of empirical material. For the student to replace the experienced researcher and work under the researcher’s supervision, we call such work proxy-produced ethnographic work. Although there are clear advantages, the specific relations and positions arising from such a set-up between the teacher/researcher and the proxy ethnographer/student are found to have implications for the ethnographies produced. This article’s main focus is to show how these relations and positions have shifted the focus of the ethnographic work and in some way have distorted the ethnographies in certain ways. It is shown how the participating researchers have distinctive, incorporated dispositions with which they pre-consciously participate in an implicit and subtle relation that can make it easy to overlook the distortions during the research process. These ethnographic distortions are generated within a framework drawn primarily on the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.

    Original languageEnglish
    JournalEthnography and Education
    Volume13
    Issue number1
    Pages (from-to)100-118
    Number of pages19
    ISSN1745-7823
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2 Jan 2018

    Keywords

    • Proxy-ethnographic work
    • Pierre Bourdieu
    • symbolic violence
    • ethnographic distortions

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