Understanding immigration detention: The analytical value of practical and emotional challenges during fieldwork
Journal of Organizational Ethnography
ISSN: 2046-6749
Article publication date: 23 January 2020
Issue publication date: 12 June 2020
Abstract
Purpose
A reflexive ethnographic account of the practical and emotional challenges encountered by the researcher during fieldwork is too often separated from the analytical research results, which, as argued by this paper, downplays or even ignores the analytical value of the encountered challenges. Drawing on personal examples from ethnographic research in immigration detention, the purpose of this paper is to show that these challenges have an intrinsic analytical value.
Design/methodology/approach
Ethnographic research was carried out in two immigration detention centres in Belgium and one in the Netherlands. Observations, informal conversations with detainees and staff, and semi-structured interviews with detainees were triangulated. Extracts from fieldnotes are presented and discussed to demonstrate the analytical value of the challenges experienced during fieldwork.
Findings
Three important challenges are presented: distrust from organisational gatekeepers and research participants, disruptions of the organisational routines, and witnessing and experiencing feelings of powerlessness. The analytical value of these challenges is strongly connected to theoretical and analytical themes that emerged during the research.
Originality/value
Ethnographic researchers are encouraged to explicitly treat the reflexive accounts of practical and emotional challenges as “data in itself” and as such nested within their analytical results.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Annika Lindberg, Tobias Eule, Kristel Beyens, Arjen Leerkes and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments that significantly improved this paper. Lars Breuls holds a PhD fellowship of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) (Project No. 1109317N).
Citation
Breuls, L. (2020), "Understanding immigration detention: The analytical value of practical and emotional challenges during fieldwork", Journal of Organizational Ethnography, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 129-142. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOE-01-2019-0003
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited