Sensory ethnography: a creative turn

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical scoping and exploration of sensory ethnography. It combines a literature survey with some relevant fieldwork reflections. It aims to both recognize and appreciate the rise of sensory ethnography as a creative turn. In short, the essay provides a series of provocations and challenges around doing different descriptive ethnography. It is organized into three sections. The first section frames and unpacks sensory ethnography. The second section articulates sensory ethnography in action by outlining the author's autoethnographic journey in both martial arts and bouncing. The final concluding section, considers the future of sensory ethnography as a radicalizing and imaginative lens within organizational ethnography and related fields

The menopause and the female police workforce

© 2019 Manchester Metropolitan University. Drawing upon previously unpublished findings from a wider study that addressed the impact of austerity and force change programmes upon the older female police workforce, this paper presents secondary analysis of focus group data to address the equality impact of such developments. The paper directs particular attention to additional challenges faced by women experiencing the menopause and menopause transition. Focus groups were undertaken between November 2012 and June 2013, across 14 force areas within England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. The findings raise questions regarding the service’s compliance with the legal obligations set out within the public sector general equality duty, which requires organisations to consider how they could positively contribute to the advancement of equality and remove or minimise disadvantages suffered by people due to their protected characteristics. The paper concludes by arguing that it is necessary to consider the intersectionality of age and gender, and to further disaggregate (and make publicly available) workforce data to take into account various subcategories of women and men that make up the police workforce. Finally, the paper highlights the need to take into account wider national and international gender equality policy when entering into ‘the future of policing’ policy discussions, and within future policing equality and diversity strategy

On Becoming a DNP user: Some Reflections on the Developing Use of a Computer

This paper considers the development of a tool to support the presentation of the material forming an ethnographic report. The paper focuses on the way in which use of the system has evolved to offer appropriate facilities. The use of viewpoints to present material from a number of studies is described. The paper concludes by reflecting on the need to consider the way in ethnographers have become users of the tool

Between overt and covert research: concealment and disclosure in an ethnographic study of commercial hospitality

This article examines the ways in which problems of concealment emerged in an ethnographic study of a suburban bar and considers how disclosure of the research aims, the recruitment of informants, and elicitation of information was negotiated throughout the fieldwork. The case study demonstrates how the social context and the relationships with specific informants determined overtness or covertness in the research. It is argued that the existing literature on covert research and covert methods provides an inappropriate frame of reference with which to understand concealment in fieldwork. The article illustrates why concealment is sometimes necessary, and often unavoidable, and concludes that the criticisms leveled against covert methods should not stop the fieldworker from engaging in research that involves covertness

Retarding field energy analyser ion current calibration and transmission

International audienceAccurate measurement of ion current density and ion energy distributions (IED) is often critical for plasma processes in both industrial and research settings. Retarding field energy analyzers (RFEA) have been used to measure IEDs because they are considered accurate, relatively simple and cost effective. However, their usage for critical measurement of ion current density is less common due to difficulties in estimating the proportion of incident ion current reaching the current collector through the RFEA retarding grids. In this paper an RFEA has been calibrated to measure ion current density from an ion beam at pressures ranging from 0.5 to 50.0 mTorr. A unique method is presented where the currents generated at each of the retarding grids and the RFEA upper face are measured separately, allowing the reduction in ion current to be monitored and accounted for at each stage of ion transit to the collector. From these I-V measurements a physical model is described. Subsequently, a mathematical description is extracted which includes parameters to account for grid transmissions, upper face secondary electron emission and collisionality. Pressure-dependant calibration factors can be calculated from least mean square best fits of the collector current to the model allowing quantitative measurement of ion current density

The everyday world of bouncers: a rehabilitated role for covert ethnography

© 2018, The Author(s) 2018. The focus of this article is on the everyday world of bouncers in the night-time economy of Manchester, England. The structure of the article is to contextualise my covert passing in this demonized subculture followed by explorations of the everyday world of bouncers through the related concepts of door order and the bouncer self. A part of the article is an examination of the management of situated ‘ethical moments’ during the fieldwork and, more generally, critical reflections on emotionality, embodiment and risk-taking in ethnography. I also reflect on the retrospective and longitudinal nature of my fieldwork immersion, and both the data management challenges and possibilities this brings. Covert ethnography can be a creative part of the ethnographer’s tool kit and can provide an alternative perspective on subcultures, settings and organisations. By overly frowning upon the apparent ethical transgressions of covert research, we can stifle and censor the sociological imagination rather than enhance it. My call is for a rehabilitation of covert research