Methodological Approaches to Composing Ethnography, and Creating Alternative Forms of Value in Tourism Research
Författare
Summary, in English
Keynote paper
The point of departure for this lecture lies in the insight that tourism research is uniquely positioned at the juncture of applied and scholarly research. Drawing upon work I have conducted in the realms tourism and leisure study, the lecture strives to problematize the practice of ethnography as a method and raise questions concerning the opportunity research in the fields of tourism and leisure have of playing a role as a form of activist academia. In doing so, this lecture takes inspiration from recent developments in sensory and digital ethnography and attempts in Sweden to develop new forms of applied cultural analysis. It questions how we can rethink our work with ethnographic analyses in compositional terms. And in light of the development of new digital technologies as well as the heightened awareness many scholars now have of the role the body and senses play in forming understanding of the world, it asks how we might be able to engage new audiences in new ways - and re-position the public's (and our own) understanding of what social and cultural research can be - through the rendering of culture. The writing and publication of texts will always be central to academia, but perhaps there is room for us to expand upon the manner in which we frame and communicate ethnographic analyses. In a time in which we are ever more expected to explain our work in terms of its usefulness and impact, there is perhaps a need to develop new modes to reach out with our analyses. George Marcus coined the term "multi-sited ethnography" to help anthropologists envision new ways of bringing materials into their work, perhaps the time has arrived for us to problematize the manner(s) in which our work can "create value" and be "given back" to different groups of people in different ways. To this end the lecture concludes by considering what it might mean to produce "multi-targeted ethnographies".
The point of departure for this lecture lies in the insight that tourism research is uniquely positioned at the juncture of applied and scholarly research. Drawing upon work I have conducted in the realms tourism and leisure study, the lecture strives to problematize the practice of ethnography as a method and raise questions concerning the opportunity research in the fields of tourism and leisure have of playing a role as a form of activist academia. In doing so, this lecture takes inspiration from recent developments in sensory and digital ethnography and attempts in Sweden to develop new forms of applied cultural analysis. It questions how we can rethink our work with ethnographic analyses in compositional terms. And in light of the development of new digital technologies as well as the heightened awareness many scholars now have of the role the body and senses play in forming understanding of the world, it asks how we might be able to engage new audiences in new ways - and re-position the public's (and our own) understanding of what social and cultural research can be - through the rendering of culture. The writing and publication of texts will always be central to academia, but perhaps there is room for us to expand upon the manner in which we frame and communicate ethnographic analyses. In a time in which we are ever more expected to explain our work in terms of its usefulness and impact, there is perhaps a need to develop new modes to reach out with our analyses. George Marcus coined the term "multi-sited ethnography" to help anthropologists envision new ways of bringing materials into their work, perhaps the time has arrived for us to problematize the manner(s) in which our work can "create value" and be "given back" to different groups of people in different ways. To this end the lecture concludes by considering what it might mean to produce "multi-targeted ethnographies".
Avdelning/ar
Publiceringsår
2014
Språk
Engelska
Dokumenttyp
Konferensbidrag
Ämne
- Ethnology
Conference name
Values in Tourism, 23 Nordic Symposium on Tourism and Hospitality. October 2, 2014
Conference date
2014-10-02
Conference place
Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Status
Unpublished