Doing Ethnography Institutional Surveillance and the Struggle for Epistemic Diversity
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Annelies Moors is an anthropologist and Professor Emerita at the University of Amsterdam. Most recently she was the principal investigator of the ERC advanced grant ‘Muslim Marriages’ and held the NIAS fellowship ‘The Struggle for the Future of Ethnography’.
<p><em>This book rescues research ethics, integrity and transparency from the clutches of an alienated and alienating managerialism and puts them at the heart of a relational ethnographic practice. It is a vital companion for all caring researchers.</em> - Ghassan Hage, University of Melbourne</p>
<p>Doing Ethnography <em>is the book we, ethnographers of the global world, have desperately needed. With remarkable clarity and courage, Annelies Moors tackles the bureaucratic stranglehold that threatens to suffocate ethnographic research. What makes</em> Doing Ethnography <em>essential is Moors' refusal to accept the false choice between ethics and ethnography. Instead, she demonstrates that the standardized protocols, designed for positivist research, often work against the very values they claim to protect. There is an epistemic violence embedded in one-size-fits-all regulations that fail to recognise the relational, processual nature of ethnographic knowledge production. Moors' arguments are both validating and urgent. This book should be required reading for every ethics committee member, research administrator, and scholar wrestling with the growing tensions between doing ethnography and satisfying institutional demands. Moors gives us the vocabulary and the courage to insist on epistemic diversity—not as a luxury, but as a precondition for ethical and rigorous research.</em> - Sertaç Sehlikoglu, University College London</p>
<p>Doing Ethnography <em>is a deep engagement with ethnography that inspires us to (re)consider its possibilities and practices in times when our research is increasingly subjected to various kinds of research management that take positivist approaches as normative. The book takes practices of ethnography as a vantage point to discuss burning questions about the production of scholarly knowledge in our times – questions such as academic freedom, research integrity, open science, transparency, neutrality, and the commodification and “projectification” of knowledge. Moors offers a compelling case for more ethics of care, autonomy, and situatedness in research, allowing us to cultivate epistemic diversity and more reliable knowledge production within the scientific field at large.</em> - Sarah Bracke, University of Amsterdam</p>
Timely critique of the expanding institutional control over academic research and its impact on ethnographic practice.
In recent decades, academic research has come under increasing institutional surveillance and control. Doing Ethnography traces the rise of ethical review procedures, open science mandates, and integrity protocols, examining how these developments shape ethnographic practice. It critically explores key themes such as doing no harm, informed consent, transparency, anonymity, researcher positionality, and the sharing of field notes.
The book argues that contemporary academia often enforces universal, bureaucratic forms of regulatory ethics. Rooted in quantitative and (post-)positivist paradigms, these frameworks frequently clash with ethnography’s interpretive, intersubjective, and immersive fieldwork approach. In response, it calls for a situated, context-sensitive ethics of care attuned to the specificities of ethnographic engagement. Ultimately, Doing Ethnography offers both a critical reflection on institutional power and a plea to recognise and sustain the epistemic diversity on which academic freedom depends.
Listen to the 'Room to Explore' episode with Annelies Moors: Spotify.
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1. Beyond an affaire: managing ethnography
1.1. An article and its afterlife: reputation management in action
1.2. Engaging with the trouble: ethnography, academia, and society
1.3. Writing this book: set-up and chapters
Chapter 2. Doing ethnography: an approach, not a method
2.1. Ethnography as relational and processual
2.2. Ethnography beyond anthropology
2.3. Ethnography in a changing world
2.4. Conclusion: epistemological plurality
Chapter 3. Research ethics: problems with regulation
3.1. Ethical self-regulation in anthropology
3.2. Enforceable ethics: state governance and beyond
3.3. Conclusion: doing ethics differently
Chapter 4. The complexities of doing no harm and informed consent
4.1. Doing no harm: power and ethos
4.2. Informed consent: the forms
4.3. Informed consent: the principle
4.4. Ethnography, concealment, and publication
4.5. Conclusion: ethical dilemmas
Chapter 5. Open Science and replication: trust, distrust, and transparency
5.1. The Open Science movement: from utopia to dystopia?
5.2. The trouble with transparency
5.3. The replication crisis: what does it mean?
5.4. Ethnography, replication, and openness
5.5. Conclusion: another kind of openness
Chapter 6. Constructing integrity: codification in context
6.1. Public scandals and the emergence of integrity codes
6.2. Constructing integrity: comparing the codes
6.3. Policy-making: projectification and integrity
6.4. Conclusion: from ethics to commerce
Chapter 7. Anonymity, positionality, and field notes: integrity in practice
7.1. Contesting anonymity: a turn to disclosure?
7.2. Positionality and substance: relations in process
7.3. The problem with sharing field notes
7.4. Conclusion: a case-by-case approach
Chapter 8. Academic freedom: scholarship and politics
8.1. A diversity of perspectives: politicising the academy
8.2. Funding and employment
8.3. External threats and internal harassment
8.4. Israel/Palestine: academic freedom in action
8.5. Conclusion: acting with responsibility
Chapter 9. Conclusion: dilemmas and responsibilities
9.1. Ethics, integrity, and power
9.2. Doing ethics and integrity differently
9.3. Academic freedom: ethnography and beyond
Notes
References
In recent decades, academic research has come under increasing institutional surveillance and control. Doing Ethnography traces the rise of ethical review procedures, open science mandates, and integrity protocols, examining how these developments shape ethnographic practice. It critically explores key themes such as doing no harm, informed consent, transparency, anonymity, researcher positionality, and the sharing of field notes. The book argues that contemporary academia often enforces universal, bureaucratic forms of regulatory ethics. Rooted in quantitative and (post-)positivist paradigms, these frameworks frequently clash with ethnography’s interpretive, intersubjective, and immersive fieldwork approach. In response, it calls for a situated, context-sensitive ethics of care attuned to the specificities of ethnographic engagement. Ultimately, Doing Ethnography offers both a critical reflection on institutional power and a plea to recognise and sustain the epistemic diversity on which academic freedom depends.
Annelies Moors is an anthropologist and professor emerita at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research of the University of Amsterdam. Most recently she was the principal investigator of the ERC advanced grant Muslim marriages and held the NIAS fellowship The struggle for the future of ethnography.
This book rescues research ethics, integrity and transparency from the clutches of an alienated and alienating managerialism and puts them at the heart of a relational ethnographic practice. It is a vital companion for all caring researchers. - Ghassan Hage, University of Melbourne
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Annelies Moors is an anthropologist and Professor Emerita at the University of Amsterdam. Most recently she was the principal investigator of the ERC advanced grant ‘Muslim Marriages’ and held the NIAS fellowship ‘The Struggle for the Future of Ethnography’.