Ethnographic locations: the geographies of feminist post-structural ethnography

Abstract

The feminist post-structuralist emphasis on social location has yielded crucial insights within debates about power and reflexivity in educational research; however, spatial location is also at play in the formation of educational ethnographies. Reflecting upon various aspects of a research project with rural students in Ontario, Canada, this paper explores three key elements of what I call the geography of ethnography. These include: (1) the spatial politics involved in constructing a research ‘site’; (2) the shifting location of the ethnographer in research practice; and (3) the liminal space of the focus group. Anchored in specific interactions in ‘the field,’ the paper demonstrates how integrating insights from cultural geography and feminist post-structuralism can yield new ethnographic understandings. I argue that educational ethnographers need to better account for the geography of ethnography in order to attend to the power-laden sphere of ethnographic research.

Keywords:

• feminist post-structuralism
• methodology
• space
• rural
• subjectivity

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Kari Dehli, James Cairns, Amy Hasinoff, and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on previous versions of this paper.

Notes

1. Developed in Canada in 1994, The Real Game is now used in ten different countries throughout North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. (www.realgame.com).

2. Students were assigned to groups based on my observations of friendship clusters, as well as individual preferences elicited privately from students.