Grounded Theory or Grounded Data?: the Production of Power and Knowledge in Ethnographic Research
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1326011100003860Abstract
AbstractThis paper concerns my own reflections on ethnographic research with Indigenous students studying at university. I began the research by using the methodology of interpretive ethnography to discover what constitutes success for Indigenous students studying at university. But after some unflattering critiques of my initial interpretation of the data, I returned to the drawing board to reflect on the methods that I had used to organise and structure the data in my interpretation. This led me to the critical ethnographers who helped me to look back on my initial positioning to see things that I could not see before. The paper consists of critical reflections on how power and knowledge are produced through the ethnographer’s methodology to suggest that knowledge is not just found in the field or in the data but is also negotiated and produced through the relation between the participant and ethnographer. It is this relation that governs how the data are collected and what the ethnographer can find.
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