Dirty Work: The Social Construction of Taint

11. Ethnography as Dirty Work

217 11 Ethnography as Dirty Work Shirley K. Drew & Melanie Mills An ethnography is written representation of a culture (or selected aspects of a culture). It carries quite serious intellectual and moral responsibilities, for the images of others inscribed in writing are most assuredly not neutral” —John Van Maanen, Tales of the Field, p. 1 Goodall (2000) defines the “new ethnography” as “creative narratives shaped out of a writer’s personal experiences within a culture and addressed to academic and public audiences” (p. 9). Ethnographers aim to “reveal the multiple truths apparent in others’ lives” (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995, p.3). But there is more to the work than “revealing” social “truths.” Ethnography is the written representation of a coconstruction of interpretations between the ethnographer and the members of the culture or site studied. “There is no direct correspondence between the world as experienced and the world as conveyed in a text, any more than there is a direct correspondence between the observer and the observed” (Van Maanen, 1988, p. 8). Ethnography is a way of seeing, but we believe that it is also a way of being. 218 Shirley K. Drew & Melanie Mills ; ; ; In the process of constructing and coconstructing this volume about dirty work, Shirley and Melanie had several conversations about “ethnography as dirty work.” The catalyst was an article we’d both read by Gary Fine, entitled Ten Lies of Ethnography (1993). We decided to construct a list of questions that would address some of the relevant issues. The following is a set of e-mail correspondences between Melanie and Shirley. In some cases they have been edited for clarity. Melanie’s Thoughts [M], Shirley’s Reactions [S] • What makes doing ethnography dirty work? In what ways is ethnography a tainted pursuit? How do we know it is tainted? [M]: Ethnography involves rolling up your shirt sleeves and getting involved in the field. As a “field hand” there is occasional physical taint, especially with dirty workers. Dirty work ethnographers “enjoy” the same taint as their subjects, by virtue of their association (social), as well as the work environment (physical). The moral dimension of taint can also be a factor—as evidenced in questions from colleagues like “whatever do you want to study (fill-in-theblank ) as your occupation for?” which suggests that there are better (more appropriate, more worthy, less filthy, less “questionable”) objects of study “out there.” I’ve gotten a lot of variations on the “What’s a nice girl like you doing studying truckers?” theme question over the years. [S]: Yes, I seem to recall reacting the same way when you first started studying truckers back in grad school. I was more concerned for your safety than anything. But I also remember thinking, “Where is this going?” [M]: Ethnographers in general (aside from studying dirty workers ) are tainted in my field (communication) because qualitative work is marginalizing. One way I know this is from participating in extended discussions at national meetings and in my department about ethnographic research and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). The emergent nature of the research makes it impossible (indeed, inappropriate and undesirable) to generalize outcomes, to control for variables, or to predict events. Many IRBs have items on their forms that assume these things. Ethnographers do not “fit.” They often cannot even fill out the permission forms to do their research. Or alternately, we are told that we do not need to go through the IRB because “your stuff” is “autobiographical” and, as such, not research. To be told your work does not count as research is pretty marginalized. Further, research work that predicts and controls is professionally rewarded more than work that describes and evokes situational understandings. Look at grant awards at research institutions. This is not to say that ethnographic work is never valued. If that were the case, we would not survive. But sometimes it does feel like pushing a big rock uphill. One of my colleagues who taught research methods regularly invited me to guest lecture for a couple of days of “qualitative crap” (token attention to my “kind” of research) in his class. The minimal time devoted to qualitative methods alone sent students a message. Fortunately, my department has evolved since then and now offers two research methods classes, one quantitative and one qualitative. [S]: I have had similar experiences in my department. One of my colleagues equates qualitative methods with content analysis . . . and...