Negotiating access and research roles within the care sector and in slaughterhouses

– experiences from ethnographic fieldwork

Abstract

Ethnographic methods are well-known research methods in working life studies. Textbooks provide insight into considerations about access, positioning, and social roles. But how does the negotiation of access and role play out across different workplace contexts? Based on an analysis of field notes from observation and interviews in the care sector and in slaughterhouses, this article contributes with ethnographic experiences about the relationship between the researcher and the field. The article illustrates how the negotiation of role plays out across contexts, and how the context influences the ethnographer’s ability to take on different research roles. The article shows how auto-ethnographic descriptions can provide a unique insight into the work context and that they can be combined with conventional ethnographic descriptions. If the context allows it, different ethnographic methods can complement each other and help the researcher to clarify and switch between roles during the fieldwork and in the written presentation of this. However, an important methodological point of the article is that the role of the researcher and the methodological approach is not something that is freely chosen but something that is negotiated and determined by the context and requires that the ethnographer has something to negotiate with that is given value in the given context.