Towards an implementation of Ethnographic Monitoring

Jef van der Aa, Jan Blommaert & Massimiliano Spotti

Babylon / Dept. of Culture Studies

Faculty of Humanities

Tilburg University

E-mail: m.spotti@uvt.nl

Superdiversity

✤ The diversification of diversity (Blommaert, Rampton & Spotti 2011)

✤ Not possible anymore to rely on ethnic grouping alone when coming to grip with diversity

✤ Globalisation does not allow us to presuppose much about migrants’ own background

✤ The idea of stability in social formation can also no longer be presupposed because there is a lack of territorial, linguistic and ethno-cultural predictability

Ethnography 1

✤ Method stemming from anthropology the descriptive analysis, owned by anthropology, to generate more knowledge in order to understand society

✤ Meten om te Weten or Weten om te Begrijpen?

✤ No understanding for the pure sake of understanding and knowledge forming, but knowledge in order to hit on the nail of social change

Ethnography 2✤ 1. The epistemology of ethnography and the narrative

character of it fit well with the emphasis on understanding societal dynamics.

✤ 2. The validation of ethnographic research needs people themselves: the development of an accurate knowledge of the meanings associated with behaviors, for both the institutions where these things happen and for the people who deal with them and do them.

✤ 3. Ethnographic learning is open and democratic to all: it is an extension of what people already do, namely it makes them understand the dynamics at the core of socialization: the understanding of meaning, norms and patterns of doing/being member of a socio-cultural space.

Ethnographic Monitoring

✤ A low cost research program, that can be encapsulated in four steps:

✤ 1. listen to the stories and to the possible problems / issues that people in the field do report to us

✤ 2. collect the right information in order to tackle this within the dynamics of the socio-cultural space under investigation

✤ 3. make the strange familiar: go back to the informants

✤ 4. theoretical formulation, reporting, valorization

Concretely

✤ Research wise: be there and present, mapping, ‘deep out’: participating in shifts, “use me” method (1)

✤ Consultation with workers and informants (1)

✤ Developing an understanding of the dynamics at play (2)

✤ Analyses (3a)

✤ Feeding back, reporting, asking the people themselves (3b)

✤ Bringing analysis to life through implementation (4)

✤ Valorization component of research (4)

Primary suspects …..

✤Department of Culture Studies / Babylon

✤Jef Van der Aa: neighborhoods and social inclusion

✤Max Spotti: asylum seekers and e-citizenship

✤Piia Varis & Fie Velghe: social media, mobile literacies in town ships

✤Jan Blommaert: superdiversity, complexity and conviviality

Where does E.M. lead to?✤ Cruciaal in de samenwerking die ontstaat door het

vierstappenplan is solidariteit: de onderzoeker komt niet om een vooraf bepaald onderzoeksplan uit te voeren, maar is solidair en luistert naar en observeert wat de werkelijke noden en foci zijn van de verschillende actoren in het veld.

✤ Samen wordt dan gewerkt aan een onderzoeksplan, dat voortdurend bijgesteld wordt op basis van gemeenschappelijk verkregen inzichten.

✤ Deze inzichten zullen dan zaak om optimaal gebruik te maken van de manoevreerruimte binnen het bestaande beleid.

✤ Door deze dynamieken in kaart te brengen, kunnen andere instellingen dit mogelijk succesvol implementeren.