Who Allowed You To Observe? A Reflexive Overt Organizational Ethnography

Marie Buscatto

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.4.3.03

Authors

Marie Buscatto Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, France

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.4.3.03

Keywords:

Ethnography, Reflexivity, Organization, Work, Epistemology

Abstract

Observing people working within organizational contexts through time creates epistemological issues, more so when doing it overtly, with top management’s official agreement. Power relations as well as hierarchical structures strongly influence the way people view the observer and interact with her in organizations. Those interactions also partly depend on his personal background – sex, age, professional position and so on. Following a reflexive approach, my objective is here to better grasp how top management’s agreement to the ethnographer’s entry on the field may influence both the way workers from differing hierarchical levels behave with her (and thus affect her observing conditions) and how he may analyse his ethnographic notes to develop scientific sociological results.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Marie Buscatto, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, France

Marie Buscatto is a Professor of sociology at l’Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne and a researcher at Georges Friedmann Research Center (Paris 1 – CNRS). She has led several intensive ethnographic surveys in modern organizations – call centers, automobile industry, insurance companies and distribution sector – and in the French Jazz world. Her current main research topics are women’s difficulties to get access and full recognition in artistic worlds and main gender segregations at work. She also develops epistemological reflections related to the uses and advantages of ethnography to study organized work. Her publications include Femmes du jazz. Musicalités, féminités, marginalisations (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2007); “Chanteuse de jazz n’est point métier d’homme. L’accord imparfait entre voix et instrument en France.” (Revue française de sociologie, 44 (1):33-60, 2003); “De la vocation artistique au travail musical: tensions, compromis et ambivalences chez les musiciens de jazz” (Sociologie de l’art, Opus 5:35-56, 2004); « Des managers à la marge : la stigmatisation d’une hiérarchie intermédiaire » (Revue française de sociologie, 43 (1):73-98, 2002).

References

Atkinson, Paul and Hammersley, Martyn (1995/1983) Ethnography. Principles in Practice. New York: Routledge.
Google Scholar

Bazsanger, Isabelle and Nicolas Dodier (1997) “Totalisation et altérité dans l’enquête ethnographique.” Revue française de sociologie 38:37-66.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3322372

Barley, Stephen R. (1990) “Images of Imaging: Notes on Doing Longitudinal Field Work.” Organization Science 1:220-247.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1.3.220

Bate, Paul S. (1997) “Whatever Happened to Organizational Anthropology? A Review of the Field of Organizational Ethnography and Anthropological Studies.” Human Relations 50 (9):147-1175.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/001872679705000905

Becker Howard S. (1970) Sociological Work: Method and Substance. Chicago: Aldine.
Google Scholar

Bloch, Marc (1997 (1949)) Apologie pour l’histoire ou Métier d’historien. Paris: Armand Colin.
Google Scholar

Burawoy, Michael B. (1998) “The Extended Case Method”. Sociological Theory 16 (1):4-33.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/0735-2751.00040

Burawoy, Michael B. (2003) “Revisits: An Outline of a Theory of Reflexive Ethnography.” American Sociological Review 68 (5):645-678.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1519757

Burawoy, Michael B. (2007a) Femmes du jazz. Musicalités, féminités, marginalisations. Paris: CNRS Editions.
Google Scholar

Burawoy, Michael B. (2007b) “Contributions of Ethnography to Gendered Sociology: the French Jazz World.” Qualitative Sociology Review III (3): 46-58. Special issue “Ethnographies of Artistic Work” edited by Becker Howard S. and Buscatto
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.3.3.04

Marie.
Google Scholar

Burawoy, Michael B. (2002) “Des managers à la marge : la stigmatisation d’une hiérarchie intermédiaire.” Revue française de sociologie 43 (1):73-98.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3322680

Burawoy, Michael B. (2001) “La relation d’emploi à l’ombre du chômage. Le cas de deux sociétés privées de service.” Travail et Emploi 87:67-79.
Google Scholar

Callon, Michel (1986) “Eléments pour une sociologie de la traduction. La domestication des coquilles Saint Jacques et des marins-pêcheurs dans la baie de Saint-Brieuc.” L’Année Sociologique 36:169-208.
Google Scholar

Dalton Melville (1959) Men who manage. Fusions of feeling and theory in administration. New York: John Wiley and sons.
Google Scholar

Dubet, François (1994) “Vraisemblance : entre les sociologues et les acteurs.” L’Année Sociologique 44:83-108.
Google Scholar

Elias, Norbert (1956) “Problems of involvement and detachment.” The British Journal of Sociology 7(3):226-252.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/587994

Gaxie Daniel (1990) “Au-delà des apparences… Sur quelques problèmes de mesure des opinions.” Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 81-82:97-112.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.3917/arss.p1990.81n1.0097

Glaser, Barney G. and Strauss, Anselm L. (1968) The Discovery of Grounded Theory. Strategies for Qualitative Research. London: Weindenfeld and Nicolson.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1097/00006199-196807000-00014

Goffman, Erving (1974) Frame Analysis. New York: Harper and Row.
Google Scholar

Hughes, Everett C. (1971) The Sociological Eye: Selected Papers on Work, Self and the Study of Society. Book 2, Chicago: Aldine.
Google Scholar

Knorr-Cetina, Karin (1996). “Le “souci de soi” ou les “tâtonnements” : ethnographie de l’empirie dans deux disciplines scientifiques.” Sociologie du travail 38(3):311-330.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/sotra.1996.2256

Le Noé Olivier (2002) “Apports et apories des statistiques sur la lecture. Formes de connaissance ou de reconnaissance de la lecture.” Sociétés et Représentations 14:249-273.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.3917/sr.014.0249

Mauger, Gérard (1991) “Enquêter en milieu populaire.” Genèses 6:125-143.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/genes.1991.1096

Peneff, Jean (1988) “The observers observed: French survey researchers at work.” Social Problems 35:520-535.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/800613

Pinçon, Michel and Pinçon-Charlot, Monique (1997) Voyage en grande bourgeoisie. Journal d’enquête. Paris: PUF.
Google Scholar

Roy, Donald (1952) “Quota Restriction and Goldbricking in a Machine Shop.” The American Journal of Sociology LVII (5):427-442.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/221011

Rabinow, Paul (1977) “Reflections on Feldwork in Morocco.” Berkeley: University of California Press.
Google Scholar

Rosen, Michael (1991) “Coming to Terms with the Field: Understanding and Doing Organizational Ethnography.” Journal of Management Studies 28 (1):1-24.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6486.1991.tb00268.x

Schwartz, Olivier (1993) “L’empirisme irréductible. La fin de l’empirisme?.” Pp. 265-305 in Le Hobo. Sociologie du sans-abri. N. Anderson (1923). Paris: Nathan.
Google Scholar

Schwartzman, Helen B. (1993) Ethnography in Organizations. London: Sage Publications.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412984119

Silverman David (2007) “Art and Artefact in Qualitative Research.” Improving the Quality of Qualitative Research Conference, The European Science Foundation, Kristiansand, Norway, June 25-27, 2007 (unpublished communication).
Google Scholar

Strauss, Anselm L. (1992) La Trame de la négociation. Sociologie qualitative et interactionnisme. Paris: L’Harmattan.
Google Scholar

Taylor, Stephanie (ed.) (2002) Ethnographic Research. A Reader. London: Sage Publications.
Google Scholar

Van Maanen, John (1979) “The Fact of Fiction in Organizational Ethnography.” Administrative Science Quaterly 24:539-550.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2392360