Beyond the Impartial Observer
Academics and practitioners discuss involved observational research
Lehman Brothers Centre for Women in Business recently held a seminar ‘Gender, Power, Embodiment in Research' funded by Economics and Social Research Council on ethnographic research which observes and interviews people. The seminar is part of an ESRC seminar series on emotions and embodiment.
The seminar brought together academics and practitioners with an interest in ethnographic research. The keynote speakers included:
- Professor Catherine Cassell (Manchester Business School), who discussed the relationship between the interviewer and interviewee.
- Professor Mats Alvesson (University of Lund), who spoke on reflexive methodology.
- Dr Karen Throsby (Warwick University) presented a paper on how differences between the researcher and the researcher matter.
- Dr TK Tina Basi (Mehfil Enterprise and Intel) spoke on her experiences of doing ethnographic work for commercial enterprise.
- Belinda Parmar (Saatchi & Saatchi) presented Xploring as an observational approach which she used to create research on women and technology called Lady Geek.
The seminar, organised by Dr Elisabeth Kelan, showed how to take research into a real life context and depart from the view that the researcher is an impartial researcher by exploring this question from an academic and practitioner side.