An Unfinished Critical Ethnographic Journey:Collaborative Reframing and Repositioning of Relationships in the Field

This paper explores my on-going collaborative research journey that began in 2009 with a critical ethnographic investigation into the ways one early years school in Bristol was working to advance a pedagogy of respect that drew on the multilingual and multiliterate out of school practices of children and their parents in order to open possibilities for in-school learning. The project was framed within a critical ethnographic approach that is underpinned by a philosophy of democratic and collaborative ways of working within the field; acknowledging identities, positionalities and relations of power as constructed within and across institutional settings. In this paper, I present the collaborative learning trajectories and relationships between myself, as researcher, and Lara, the Head Teacher, a key participant within this project. I situate this within a critical reading of researcher identities, collaboration and research-community partnerships within a scholarship that draws on arguments for the democratizing of knowledge production, the re-evaluation and transformation of field relationships through reflexive practice (Byrd-Clark & Dervin, 2014; Facer & Enright, 2016; Giampapa, 2011) and the intellectual and emotional commitment involved in shaping them. What evolved through this unfinished critical ethnographic journey is an understanding of the underlying «practical, personal and symbolic» reasons (Facer & Enright, 2016, p. 59) for field relationships as a starting point in order to build deeper forms of engagement. These deeper forms of engagement generate different ways of knowing that are co-created, ethically grounded, socially responsible and action oriented (Campbell & Lassiter, 2010). I stress the transformative power of these field conversations that were able to evolve and shape new ways of understanding as a result of the longevity of being in the field and working beyond it

Gatekeeping the interactional order:Field access and linguistic ideologies in CLIL-type bilingual education programs in Spanish secondary schools

This article reflexively discusses field access as a continuous process in linguistic ethnographic fieldwork and illustrates how interactions generated during negotiations to establish a research collaboration, initial contacts with participants or data gathered to complement audio-visual recordings of naturally occurring interaction can, in fact, become rich sources to answer research questions. The discussion is based on a critical sociolinguistic ethnography on the implementation of English-Spanish ‘bilingual programs’ in a mid-sized city in central Spain. To build this discussion we propose a framework in which particular research stances held by participants become closely intertwined with particular research processes, spaces and techniquesResearch reported in this article was supported by the project "The appropriation of English as a global language in Castilla-La Mancha secondary schools: A multilingual, situated and comparative approach", funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Plan Nacional I+D+I 2014 / Reference: FFI2014-54179-C2-2-P). It has also been possible thanks to the funds granted to the Research Consolidated Group LADIC - UCLM, co-financed by the European Union and the European Regional Development Fund (Ref: 2019-GRIN-26973

What's in a Name? Shifting Identities of Traditional Organized Crime in Canada in the Transnational Fight against the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta

The Italian antimafia authorities have warned Canadian law enforcement about the risks and the growing concerns for the infiltration of clans of the Calabrian mafia, known as ‘ndrangheta, in Eastern Canada. The alarm linked to the rise of the ‘ndrangheta challenges the paradigms of traditional organized crime in Canada, because the ‘ndrangheta is presented as traditional but also innovative and more pervasive than other mafia-type groups. Through access to confidential investigations and interviews to key specialist law enforcement teams in Toronto and Montreal, this article investigates today's institutional perception of mafia – the ‘ndrangheta in particular – in Canada when compared to Italian conceptualizations. I will argue that the changes in narratives in Canada can be read in relation to changes in the Italian identity in the country, moving towards regionalization and specialist knowledge of ethnic differences

An Unfinished Critical Ethnographic Journey: Collaborative Reframing and Repositioning of Relationships in the Field

This paper explores my on-going collaborative research journey that began in 2009 with a critical ethnographic investigation into the ways one early years school in Bristol was working to advance a pedagogy of respect that drew on the multilingual and multiliterate out of school practices of children and their parents in order to open possibilities for in-school learning. The project was framed within a critical ethnographic approach that is underpinned by a philosophy of democratic and collaborative ways of working within the field; acknowledging identities, positionalities and relations of power as constructed within and across institutional settings. In this paper, I present the collaborative learning trajectories and relationships between myself, as researcher, and Lara, the Head Teacher, a key participant within this project. I situate this within a critical reading of researcher identities, collaboration and research-community partnerships within a scholarship that draws on arguments for the democratizing of knowledge production, the re-evaluation and transformation of field relationships through reflexive practice (Byrd-Clark & Dervin, 2014; Facer & Enright, 2016; Giampapa, 2011) and the intellectual and emotional commitment involved in shaping them. What evolved through this unfinished critical ethnographic journey is an understanding of the underlying «practical, personal and symbolic» reasons (Facer & Enright, 2016, p. 59) for field relationships as a starting point in order to build deeper forms of engagement. These deeper forms of engagement generate different ways of knowing that are co-created, ethically grounded, socially responsible and action oriented (Campbell & Lassiter, 2010). I stress the transformative power of these field conversations that were able to evolve and shape new ways of understanding as a result of the longevity of being in the field and working beyond it

Told and Untold Stories::Finding New Ways to Represent the Voices of Culturally Diverse Learners Through Narrative Vignettes

This article considers the challenges of representing young, ethnically diverse learners via narrative vignettes. Aware of young learners’ underrepresentation in research reporting compared to adult teaching perspectives, (Author 1, 2017), we feel it important to review methodologies that claim to represent young learners’ stories. Looking back at a year-long critical ethnography, we return to the data, reflecting on old conversations while revisiting the motivations behind writing narrative vignettes. Our new conversations consider how this brought participants (and researchers) in from the ‘margins’ of research (Author 2 and other, 2011). We reflect through an embodied, emotional and affective lens, raising important questions around the ethics of representation and making socially just choices. We conclude that narrative vignettes are not giving voice to young learners, but that the methodology captures both told and untold stories which benefit from a reflexive approach to data at the time of the research as well as retrospectively