Politically Sensitive Encounters: Ethnography, Access, and the Benefits of “Hanging Out”

Brendan Ciarán Browne; Ruari-Santiago McBride

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.11.1.02

Authors

Brendan Ciarán Browne Queen’s University Belfast, Ireland
Ruari-Santiago McBride Queen’s University Belfast, Ireland

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.11.1.02

Keywords:

Fieldwork, Ethnography, Hanging Out, Politically Sensitive Environments, Researcher Legitimacy

Abstract

Negotiating politically sensitive research environments requires both a careful consideration of the methods involved and a great deal of personal resolve. In drawing upon two distinct yet comparable fieldwork experiences, this paper champions the benefits of ethnographic methods in seeking to gain positionality and research legitimacy among those identified as future research participants. The authors explore and discuss their use of the ethnographic concept of “hanging out” in politically sensitive environments when seeking to negotiate access to potentially hard to reach participants living in challenging research environments. Through an illustrative examination of their experiences in researching commemorative rituals in Palestine and mental health in a Northern Irish prison, both authors reflect upon their use of “hanging out” when seeking to break down barriers and gain acceptance among their target research participants. Their involvement in a range of activities, not directly related to the overall aims of the research project, highlights a need for qualitative researchers to adopt a flexible research design, one that embraces serendipitous or chance encounters, when seeking to gain access to hard to reach research participants or when issues of researcher legitimacy are particularly pronounced, such as is the case in politically sensitive research environments.

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Author Biographies

Brendan Ciarán Browne, Queen’s University Belfast, Ireland

Brendan Ciarán Browne is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation and Social Justice, Queen’s University Belfast. He holds Undergraduate and Master’s Degrees in Law, and Law and Human Rights and a Ph.D. in Sociology. His research experience includes conducting qualitative fieldwork studies in conflicted and post-conflict environments including Palestine and Northern Ireland. His ongoing research focuses on issues associated with growing up in conflicted and divided societies, political factions in conflict, and public commemoration and memory making in areas said to be experiencing conflict or a period of transition away from conflict.
Ruari-Santiago McBride, Queen’s University Belfast, Ireland

Ruari-Santiago McBride is a doctoral candidate at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland. He holds a Bachelor with Honors degree in Social Anthropology and Ethnomusicology, Msc Medical Anthropology, and MRes Degree in Social Research Methods. His research interests include mental health policy and practice in the criminal justice system.

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