Politics, Discourse and Ethnography

Panel Chairs :

Christos Pallas, University of Essex (UK), cpalla@essex.ac.uk

Leonidas Karakatsanis University of Essex (UK)

Abstract:

In recent years there has been a noticeable interest in incorporating ethnographic methods within the qualitative research 'toolkit' of studying politics. Τhe publication of Political Ethnography by E. Schatz (ed.) university of Chicago Press, 2009, provided the necessary stimulus for re-opening a discussion about 'field research', 'participant observation',  'ethnographic sensibility' and 'ethnography' as well as about their role in approaches of the 'political'.This panel aims at exploring further these current debates about the possibilities of such 'political ethnographies', from the perspective of interpretive policy analysis, discourse theory and other qualitative research in political science.

 In particular, we call for the submission of papers which explore: 

1. The relationship between ethnography and political analysis and theorizing, in its ontological, epistemological and methodological implications.
2. The uses of ethnographic methods in particular research projects, in experimenting with empirical material and in promoting inter-disciplinarity in research practices.

We invite theory/method-oriented papers focused on the 'translation' between disciplinary fields, as well as empirically-oriented papers or 'political ethnographies'. Some of the questions informing the panel's rationale are:

• What is the role of interdisciplinarity and how should it be pursued in this exchange of methods and methodological strategies
• What can a 'political' ethnography be?
• How 'discourse' and/or 'practices' can be studied: The role of ethnographic sensibility.
• What is a style of political theorizing that is ethnographic?
• Does ethnography embody inherently political dimensions? Which are these dimensions?
• What are the disciplinary constrains in political science in order to do ethnographic work?
• Is it by virtue of certain objects of study that ethnography could be 'political'? Which are these objects?
• Could ethnography be 'political' in the sense that it is practiced as a form of cultural critique?
• What are the criteria we use to delimit what is a 'political ethnography?

How will a 'political ethnography' go about pursuing its objectives?