Sexual Harassment and the Construction of Ethnographic Knowledge1. Issue 3 (23rd May 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hanson, Rebecca; Richards, Patricia
• Is Part Of: Sociological forum. Volume 32:Issue 3(2017)
• Page Start: 587
• Page End: 609
• Publication Date: 2017-05-23
• Subjects: danger -- embodiment -- ethnography -- fieldwork -- ideological forms -- sexual harassment; Sociology -- Periodicals; 301
• DOI: 10.1111/socf.12350
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0884-8971

Abstract

Abstract : It is not uncommon for women researchers to experience sexualized interactions, sexual objectification, and harassment as they conduct fieldwork. Nevertheless, these experiences are often left out of ethnographers' "tales from the field" and remain unaddressed within our discipline. In this article, we use women's experiences with harassment in the field to interrogate the epistemological foundations of ethnographic methodology within the discipline of sociology. Based on more than 50 qualitative interviews, we examine three "fixations" of contemporary ethnography that inform women ethnographers' understandings of and reactions to harassment in the field. These fixations are solitude, danger, and intimacy. Our data show that these fixations not only put researchers in danger but also have implications for the construction of ethnographic knowledge. They contribute to silence surrounding sexual harassment, and are motivated by and reproduce androcentric norms that valorize certain types of fieldwork. We argue that acknowledging and analyzing experiences with harassment and other unwanted sexual attention in the field is part of a more fully developed understanding of ethnographic research itself.