Ethnography, Ethnographers and Hospitality Research: Communities, Tensions and Affiliations

Abstract

This paper examines the professional and moral positions of ethnographers located in institutions specialising in hospitality management. The paper considers the notion of ethnographic subjectivity and argues that ethnographers working in various paradigmatic contexts have differing relationships with the principles and practices of social science, organisation studies and commercial activity. It is suggested that they are simultaneously members of disparate communities with conflicting norms and values. The paper identifies the cultural and institutional forces that shape the absence, presence and the potential future of ethnography in hospitality management research.

Notes

It is interesting to highlight Slattery's (1985, p. 133) review of The World of Waiters in which he criticises Mars and Nicod for being “non-hotel researchers” who are “outsiders to the hotel world, making sorties into hotels then withdrawing to their more general disciplines.” His comments reflect the tensions between applied ethnographers or anthropologists and committed hospitality academics.

At the 2005 workshop David Mills presented the results of a Higher Education Academy, Sociology, Anthropology and Politics Subject Network (C-SAP) funded research project that examined what anthropologists did after leaving university. One of the questions from the audience was why the study only looked at traditional anthropology department, while not considering the many anthropologists who gain their academic qualifications in non-anthropology departments. David's response suggested that anthropologists outside anthropology departments were not considered. Although the difficulties of finding self-defined anthropologists in non-anthropology departments is obvious, it must also be recognised that his response, and the study, did little to challenge the notion that applied anthropologists working in non-specialist institutions are not considered to be part of the disciplinary community.