Session Information
99 ERC SES 06 H, Ethnographic Approaches in Education
Paper Session
Contribution
Ethnography is ‘living with group of people for extended period in order to document and interpret their distinctive ways of life, beliefs and values integral to them’ (Hammersley & Atkinson 2007:1). It is reification of social thought which considers the subjective interpretation of social reality of people. Srivastava sharply puts it as ‘knowing from them what they know about themselves’ (2012:361). Hence perception of social reality becomes more important than the existing objective reality as it involves interpretive understanding of the meanings rather than just externally observed behaviour. The access to the information which shapes this reality often gets controlled, and where the mechanism of control shapes the reality itself. This expression is based on the fundamental assumption of gatekeeping which suggests that information helps shape the social realities (Shoemaker & Vos 2009). Those who have control over information also control social realities. There exists a dialogical relationship between social realities, information, the control of the information and the ‘display’ of that control.
In this backdrop, the paper deconstructs the complexities of gatekeeping as ‘theoretical consideration beyond the practical considerations’ (Campbell et al. 2006:117) of Ethnography. At the outset it must be acknowledged that most of the ethnographies suffer a fundamental dichotomy. On one hand, the Researcher wants to fully assimilate with the field to get maximum insights; the field may not fully accept the Researcher on the other hand. This dichotomy is precisely the reason why ethnographies have difficulty in finding patronage and are usually marked by gatekeeping. Hence gatekeeping becomes a ‘normal’ or even expected phenomenon for any fieldwork. Venkataraman (2014) explains such subtleties of gatekeeping with a case example of an orphan school in India.
To deconstruct these complexities, a six month long ethnographic fieldwork was undertaken at an International residential School in North India to explore its stance on Education for Peace (EfP). It must be noted that the ‘EfP intends not only to build competencies, values, behaviour and skills to confront violence but also becomes a practice where the purpose i.e. why to teach, the content i.e. what to teach and the pedagogy i.e. how to teach, is tailored to nurturing values of peace’ (Kester 2010). Thus the fieldwork was aimed at understanding the institutional structures and processes, per/formative of the School governed by the ideals of EfP. But the central aim was to deconstruct these ideals in terms of the institutional lives.
Method
While the impetuous was to explore the School’s stance on Education for Peace (EfP), the fieldwork was aimed at understanding the institutional structures and processes, per/formative of the School governed by the ideals of EfP. But the central aim was to deconstruct these ideals in terms of the institutional lives. The institutional ethnography unpacks discursive dynamics of the School. The impetus for this research is rooted in the lived experiences and pedagogical observations of the everyday life at the School. It relies on the observational research developed out of the sustained fieldworks. This also included shadowing, classroom observations, structured-semi structured interviews, reflective notes, curating activities to illicit data. It studies the diversities of institutional interactions and social processes to understand the symbols and meanings of the School. The thick descriptions of how actors construct their social realities were deconstructed by being in prolonged proximity of everyday life of the participants and by immersion in actualities of the life at the school.
Expected Outcomes
Gatekeeping is the access-constraints of the field. As this underscores the methodological challenge of any research, it is important to provide a reflexive account on them. The central argument is developed from an Ethnographic fieldwork in an International Residential School in North India. While the fieldwork was exploring the institutional positions on Education for Peace (EfP), the Ethnographer have noticed the subtler gatekeeping mechanisms marked by social controls based on asymmetry of power. The present research deconstructs the complexities of gatekeeping on the basis of social-psychology of power as it builds upon mechanics of social control. It also underscores cathartic reflections i.e. implications of gatekeeping on researcher’s own emotions. The article concludes that, gatekeeping efforts are made of institutional ideologies and underscores a perspective that gatekeeping functions beyond the itemized and routine ways of decision making but more as a sophisticated process. It is situated in the implications of critical positionality of the Researcher and researched vis-à-vis the asymmetry of power structures. The article concludes by arguing that gatekeeping is an inherently political process.
References
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