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This paper aims to explore how experiences and emotions arising from the performance of ethnography shape the construction of knowledge about democratic practice in two social enterprises. It argues that ethnographers can develop a more nuanced understanding of organisational practices by moving beyond the self-reflexive work of being aware of one’s position to embrace the emotional work of engaging reflexively with this position, re-embedding reflexive moments in the process of knowledge construction.

Reflections are made on the emotions and experiences arising during a 12-month ethnographic study in two social enterprises.

The author found that engaging reflexively with relational and emotional processes of meaning-making opened up three analytical starting points. First it highlighted and helped the researcher to see beyond the limits of their assumptions, opening them to new understandings of democracy. Second, it gave rise to empathetic resonance through which the researcher was able to feel into the practice of democracy and re-frame it as a site of ongoing struggle. Finally, it brought to consciousness tacit ways of knowing and being central to both research and democratic praxis.

The paper adds to limited literature on processes of knowledge construction. Specifically, it contributes new insights into how emotional experiences and empathetic resonance arising at the meeting point of research performance and democratic praxis can offer analytical starting points for a more nuanced understanding of democratic organising in social enterprise.

As a critical and intimate form of inquiry, ethnography remains close to lived realities and equips scholars with a unique methodological angle on social phenomena. This paper aims to explore the potential gains from an increased use of ethnography in social enterprise studies.

The authors develop the argument through a set of dualistic themes, namely, the socio-economic dichotomy and the discourse/practice divide as predominant critical lenses through which social enterprise is currently examined, and suggest shifts from visible leaders to invisible collectives and from case study-based monologues to dialogic ethnography.

Ethnography sheds new light on at least four neglected aspects. Studying social enterprises ethnographically complicates simple reductions to socio-economic tensions, by enriching the set of differences through which practitioners make sense of their work-world. Ethnography provides a tool for unravelling how practitioners engage with discourse(s) of power, thus marking the concrete results of intervention (to some degree at least) as unplannable, and yet effective. Ethnographic examples signal the merits of moving beyond leaders towards more collective representations and in-depth accounts of (self-)development. Reflexive ethnographies demonstrate the heuristic value of accepting the self as an inevitable part of research and exemplify insights won through a thoroughly bodily and emotional commitment to sharing the life world of others.

The present volume collects original ethnographic research of social enterprises. The editorial develops the first consistent account of the merits of studying social enterprises ethnographically.

Although recent years have seen a considerable increase in the number of people living in abominable conditions as well as a rapid increase in the incidence of natural disasters rendering thousands of people homeless, few architects are aware of the possible contribution they could make to both development and humanitarian relief. This paper focuses on a particular series of educational workshops for architects and architecture students interested in the field of development and participatory practice: the Summer Schools organised by Architecture Sans Frontières - UK, a not-for-profit organisation that focuses on both equitable and sustainable approaches to development. It looks at the observations from the participants on the workshops and building exercise of one particular ASF-UK Summer School focusing on ‘Vulnerability and Risk: Rebuilding Communities after Disaster’ held between the first and the sixth of September 2006, at the Eden Centre in Cornwall, in collaboration with International Development in Extreme Environments (IDEE), discussing the aims and setup of this workshop, the lessons it attempted to bring across as well as participants' experiences.