Liminal ethnography: understanding segregated organisations
Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management
ISSN: 1746-5648
Article publication date: 28 August 2007
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