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

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