Marlot Kuiper

115 On Ethnography ing As ethnographic texts involve both detailed and conscious descriptions of ‘everyday activities’ and the more general interpretations of these findings, I felt that I literally needed ‘space’ to communicate my findings. This is probably the most evident reason why this dissertation ultimately took the form of a monograph; in writing scientific publications I not uncommonly felt restricted in providing thick descriptions and a firm analysis by the word limit provided by both journals and book publishers. The empirical chapters 5 and 6 are therefore based on scientific publications, but they appear in a more extensive form in this dissertation. This again shows how ethnographic activities are mingled. I wrote and published an early text, and based on new insights, I reworked and extended the text, adding more data. With regard to chapter 7, the process will be the other way around as I am rewriting and confining the text into a publishable article. 4.6 The ethnographers role and ethical concerns This dissertation is all about sensemaking, as a researcher I try to make sense of how people act, how they feel, and why they do what they do. The role of the researcher in these processes is often overlooked. Though ‘doing’ social science necessarily implies generating interpretations of interpretations (Geertz, 1973). A fundamental aspect of doing social science for the researcher is to address his or her own subjectivity within the project itself. All knowledge in the social sciences is construed from some point of view (Brown, 1976) and the acknowledgement of the social construction of reality asks social scientists to become more reflexive of and critical towards their own practice (Van Hulst 2008). Key in ethnographic research is the participation in the social setting; getting to know ‘how things are done’ is crucial to this study. Though it is important not to lose sight of the outsiders perspective. The episodic observations helped me to maintain the balance between an ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ status. I could merge myself into the setting and its participants for multiple days, but then literally move away to allow for a more distanced perspective on what I had seen. Brewer (2002) described this process of getting close to the people under study but maintaining a professional distance which permits adequate observation and data collection a ‘fine balance’. The dual role that I played between complete observer and observer as participant, allowed me to participate while also critically reflect on what I observed and gathered while doing so (ibid). 4