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In this paper, we responded to recent calls for the use of a greater variety of qualitative methods in the study of inter-organizational encounters, including mergers and acquisitions (M&As). The paper provided a reflection on the authors’ experiences in carrying out two studies of merger processes in the UK and Finland, one ethnographic and one combing also auto-­ethnographic methods. Contrasts between the former case of an “outsider” entering into an ethnographic study and the latter case of an auto-ethnographer with a dual role as a researcher and integration team member were highlighted. The paper offered three contributions to extant research. First, the paper extended the methodological debate in the study of M&As to the level of individual methods. Second, the paper identified the finding types that emerge when using ethnographic methods in the study of mergers. Third, the paper discussed the unique challenges posed when conducting ethnographic work investigating organizational combinations in times of mergers as opposed to ethnography in traditional, single organizational settings.

The purpose of this paper is to make a case for the strength of qualitative work, but more specifically for various kinds of ethnographies.

The authors argue that global neoliberal and audit culture policies have crept into academic research, tertiary education practice, and research culture.

The authors then discuss major tenets of and make the case for the use of auto-, duo-, and collaborative-ethnographies as caring practices and research method(ologies) that may in fact push back against such hegemonic neoliberal practices in the academy. Finally, the authors link these caring types of ethnographies to the papers within this special issue.

This is an original look at the concepts of auto-, duo-, and collaborative-ethnographies with relation to caring practices.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the use of an auto‐ethnographic life history can provide rich, original data to critically analyse the interplay between the socially constructed self, a career journey over time and societal change.

A reflexive auto‐ethnography is used as a conduit to explore a career journey. The author draws on the fluidity of ageing to make visible gendered organizational processes. The setting is New Zealand.

To understand the interplay of a career journey through a life history approach and intersectional analysis reinforces the life‐long significance of gender with ageing.

The author suggests that by reflecting on the complex interplay of one's own life through an intersectional approach can add a further dimension to scholarly thinking on the “doing” of intersectionality when considering the career journey of others.

In this chapter, I reflect on my experiences researching women's football in Argentina as a professional player in the teams I was studying, UAI Urquiza and Argentina's national team. First, I explore some theoretical aspects of auto-ethnography and ethnography. Before entering into the main discussion of the text; however, I contextualise my work, starting with my access to the field and briefly summarising my own football career as an Argentine-American. Then, I articulate the categories of insider/outsider and native/non-native with my fieldwork and the transformations in the players, the sport and myself that I observed throughout my time in the field. Finally, the text concludes with a reflection on the limitations and opportunities offered by auto-ethnography in the social study of sport.

The purpose of this paper is to provide guidelines for reflexive ethnographic writing that transports the researcher's claims of having conducted participatory reflexive research to her audience.

Auto‐ethnographic vignettes from the author's own ethnographic research are used to establish five levels of reflexivity for writing organizational ethnography.

The author argues that the audience needs to be able to judge a researcher's claims to reflexivity through his/her writing. Yet, due to the participation mode of reflexivity while doing ethnographic research, the researcher is not in control over his/her own reflexive writing. Therefore, processes between three groups of stakeholders, namely researcher, field and audience, and their power relations need to be considered in reflexive writing. The author calls this process ethnographic triangulating and derives a five‐tiered model of reflexive writing from it.

The paper offers a perspective on how to write organizational ethnography. Others will have to put this perspective into practice.

The paper moves the participation mode of reflexivity to the level of writing, thereby offering a fully conceived view on reflexivity that acknowledges the influence of field and audience on ethnographic writing.

Purpose – This chapter explores a traditional mode of ethnography referred to as ‘realist ethnography’ as it relates to sport and physical culture (SPC) research.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter discusses different approaches to ethnography, but principally addresses a realist ethnography I conducted on Ashtanga yoga in Canada.

Findings – I discuss how data evolved from the realist ethnographic method, and outline the manner in which ethnographic research is as a ‘way of life’. The chapter concludes that the realist ethnographic method is not untenable, as some authors suggest, but rather a viable and exciting mode of knowledge production in the SPC field.

Originality/value – The chapter is original work. It makes a case for the retention of realist ethnographies in our methodological lexicon, and illustrates the empirical process of writing culture. It also endeavours to engage students and scholars alike regarding the value of ethnographic methods more broadly.

The purpose of this paper is to present an evocative story “Resisting the Ban” which illustrates the ethical and pragmatic issues that nurses face when contending with smoking ban policies in inpatient psychiatric settings.

The creative story “Resisting the Ban” was developed based on an organisational auto-ethnographic approach. The story was crafted through employing creative writing techniques and through framing and critiquing memories via several theoretical frames.

The story illustrates how smoking ban policies have created pragmatic and ethical issues on wards. The work practices of nurses have changed as have their relationships with patients. The liberties of involuntary patients have also been infringed.

This approach can illuminate links between acts of resistance and issues associated with public policies.

The effects of smoking bans need to be considered more carefully particularly in relation to their effects on workers and patients. The social meaning of the smoking bans needs closer investigation. Policy needs to be recrafted so that it better addresses the liberties of involuntary patients. Also ward nurses need to be able to carry out their roles in a manner which is consistent with their values.

Public policies, such as smoking bans, can produce negative consequences maligning relationships, practices and cultures. Critical auto-ethnography provides a means of understanding issues that have resulted from problematic policies.

Scholarly work conducted on the relationship between everyday resistance in workplaces and public policies is rare. This study offers new “insider” insights into the negative effects of a smoking ban policy in psychiatric inpatient settings.

The purpose of this paper is to explore Bryan Stevenson’s (2014, 2015) call to action from within two emergent schools of thought in criminology, “cultural criminology,” and “convict criminology”, which share a special concern with the contributions that criminological research makes to a climate of social control and punishment. The author’s central aim is to explore the capacity of what the author argues is a potentially under-leveraged tool of social change – the philosophies underlying and implemented in cultural and convict criminology.

To demonstrate the potential impact of this research, the author draws upon a purposive sample of qualitative studies that exemplify the particular emotive, moral, and aesthetic goals central to Stevenson’s call to action. The impact of the production of images of crime, crime control, and criminals that emerge in the development of the paradigms central to cultural and convict criminology is finally discussed in terms of Stevenson’s four prescriptions for social and criminal justice reform.

The underlying philosophies, theoretical assumptions, and methodological approaches dictated by convict and cultural criminology are uniquely equipped to make visible the forces linked to resistance to penal and social reform.

In synthesizing cultural criminology and the emergent convict criminology as guides to doing empirical research, and identifying each as embodying Stevenson’s call to action, the author hopes – maybe not to extract those easily ignitable, invisible forces away from reform efforts entirely, but at least – to provide those who are interested with a more nuanced map of where they are not likely to live and breathe them. Stimulating and widening the criminological imagination might not satisfy our need to quickly and concretely apply a solution to injustice, but it might be what the problem demands.

Stevenson (2014) argues that the extent of injustice in the US criminal justice system is so pervasive, extraordinary, and long standing, that everyone has a role to play in the course of our everyday lives in turning the tide of indifference and cruelty that feed mass injustice and incarceration. Applying his proposals to the on-the-ground working lives of empirical criminologists holds potential for effecting change from the top-down.

This chapter is based on experiences from two field studies, conducted in Tanzania and Pakistan, with a focus on women entrepreneurs. When conducting research in the global south, there are several ethical challenges to carefully consider, especially when research involves vulnerable groups of people. The aim of the chapter is to shed light on the complexities of power dynamics and to reflect on how to handle ethical dilemmas that may arise. Stories of women I met during the field work are placed at the centre and used as starting points for reflections on power dynamics. These stories lead to a discussion on whether it is legitimate for (privileged) Westerners to engage in research in the global south. The value of ethnography and auto-ethnography within entrepreneurship research is thereafter discussed in hopes of assisting future studies, where different power structures have to be considered.

The purpose of this paper is to present a collaborative (auto)ethnography that has emerged from the meeting of four academic researchers working with and from the heart in various Latin American contexts.

Our “I’s” have mingled with our very varied participations in different themes, latitudes, and disciplines – health, education and psychosocial approaches. We have worked, variously, in both English and Spanish. At the core of this piece are our own biographies, motivations, senses, academic dreams, international contexts, and the injustices and suffering felt in our bodies.

We seek to reflect from our experience of traveling as young researchers and as women with Latin souls. Through our stories, we show how crossing cultures as part of our research and work gives us both a privileged position but also the constant stress and questioning that goes beyond the intellectual and appears in our embodied experiences of interculturality.

The limitation of this piece of research is that it is based on personal experiences, that although there may be people who feel identified with these experiences, these are not generalizable or transferable.

Performative autoethnography is an instance to understand the world like a crisol with different faces; self, social, cultural and methodology, which allows us to understand the world from a holistic perspective.

With this paper, we hope to contribute for other women in academia to see themselves reflected in the experience of moving through a globalized world.

Through both living in and reflecting on this process, we show how our experiences provide us with new, intercultural “worlds under construction.”