Proxy-produced ethnographic work: what are the problems, issues, and dilemmas arising from proxy-ethnography?

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This article addresses the implications of researcher-student cooperation in the production of empirical material. For the student to replace the experienced researcher and work under the researcher’s supervision, we call such work proxy-produced ethnographic work. Although there are clear advantages, the specific relations and positions arising from such a set-up between the teacher/researcher and the proxy ethnographer/student are found to have implications for the ethnographies produced. This article’s main focus is to show how these relations and positions have shifted the focus of the ethnographic work and in some way have distorted the ethnographies in certain ways. It is shown how the participating researchers have distinctive, incorporated dispositions with which they pre-consciously participate in an implicit and subtle relation that can make it easy to overlook the distortions during the research process. These ethnographic distortions are generated within a framework drawn primarily on the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.

Original languageEnglish
JournalEthnography and Education
Volume13
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)100-118
Number of pages19
ISSN1745-7823
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2 Jan 2018
Externally publishedYes

    Research areas

  • ethnographic distortions, Pierre Bourdieu, Proxy-ethnographic work, symbolic violence

ID: 230899577