Marlot Kuiper

106 Connective Routines routines and how they are interrelated (see also the analytical framework as presented in chapter two). I shadowed professionals for full working days to get to see the engagement of these actants across routines. Days of observation usually started at the dressing room, fromwhere I shadowed the clinician to everywhere he or she went. This meant literally everywhere, to the operating theatre naturally, but also to the holding, recovery, coffee room, and any other location in the hospital. I followed their footsteps until the door of the bathroom. Gold’s (1958) classic typology of research roles characterises participation on a continuum from ‘complete participant’ to ‘complete observer’. As a non-medic, I have never been a complete participant, though shadowing involved a subtle game of becoming more or less visible as a researcher. Sometimes, I acted as a complete observer, while in other situations I was more an observer as participant (Gold, 1958). For example when the surgical team was performing the checklist or operating the patient, I tried to fade into the background by positioning myself at the back of the operating room. At other times I was more involved in the setting, for example by practically ‘doing’ things like helping move patients from the surgical table back to their beds, handing gloves or other materials, picking up the phone, or tying up a surgeons’ sterile coat. In these cases it felt more ‘natural’ to participate in the setting. An advantage of this research setting is that, because of its educational character, people are very used to ‘unfamiliar faces’ and ‘shadowing’. Therefore, as a researcher shadowing the different respondents I could naturally ‘fit’ within the setting. During the fieldwork, I was aware of the fact that I was shadowing an ‘elite’ professional group. Pierce (1995) has labelled this ‘studying up’. I certainly became aware of power relations and my subordinate position being a female social scientist researcher in the surgical domain that is dominated by men. For example, I found out that picking up the phone in the operating theatre was something that I was expected to do – people kept firmly staring at me like “are you still planning to pick up the phone or what?!” - a task that is usually performed by scrub nurses or interns. The same goes for tying up sterile coats. Sometimes I felt that my status as a researcher worked in my favour; I was permitted to observe because I did not pose any threat. But occasionally I also felt as if I was some kind of ‘mascot’, just like Pierce (1995) and Pope (2005) have described.