To read this content please select one of the options below:

Liminal ethnography: understanding segregated organisations

Francesca Bargiela‐Chiappini (School of Arts and Humanities, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK)

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management

ISSN: 1746-5648

Article publication date: 28 August 2007

1173

Abstract

Purpose

The paper aims to discuss liminal ethnography as a new approach for conducting research in segregated organisations.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper proposes liminality as a conceptual key to understanding both the condition of the organisational ethnographer and that of her interlocutors. Conversatio is the novel hermeneutical method that is discussed in conjunction with liminal ethnography.

Findings

Liminal ethnography as outlined in the paper emerged as an approach from preliminary contact with the organisational reality of the monastery as a type of total institution. Similarly, conversatio suggested itself as a method that maximises limited face to face contact with interlocutors whose access to the external world is restricted by a behavioural code enshrined in a Rule.

Research limitations/implications

Paradoxically, the restrictions imposed on the researcher provided inspiration for the analytical approach proposed by the paper therefore initial limitations such as restricted access eventually spurred conceptual development.

Originality/value

The original approach should be of interest to organisational researchers operating in total institutions or in organisations where severely restricted access renders extant methodologies only partly applicable, if at all. The paper also discusses ethical issues arising from collaboration with rule‐governed communities.

Keywords

Citation

Bargiela‐Chiappini, F. (2007), "Liminal ethnography: understanding segregated organisations", Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 126-143. https://doi.org/10.1108/17465640710778520

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2007, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Related articles