Genre blurring and public administration: What can we learn from ethnography?
By: Rhodes, R.A.W.
Material type:
ArticlePublisher: 2014Description: p.317-330.Subject(s): Public administration
In:
Australian Journal of Public AdministrationSummary: This article seeks to broaden the craft of public administration by blurring genres. First, I explain the phrase blurring genres. Second, I provide some examples of early work in administrative ethnography. Third, I compare this early, modernist-empiricist ethnography with interpretive ethnography, suggesting researchers confront three choices: naturalism vs. anti-naturalism; intensive vs. hit-and-run fieldwork; and generalisation vs. local knowledge. After this general discussion, and fourth, I discuss the more prosaic issues that confront anyone seeking to use ethnography to study public administration and look at fieldwork roles, relevance, time, evidence and fieldwork relationships. Fifth, I describe and il ilustrate the several tools students of public administration can use as well as observation and interviews; namely, focus groups, para-ethnography, visual ethnography, and storytelling. Finally, I conclude that ethnographic fieldwork provides texture, depth and nuance, and lets interviewees explain the meaning of their actions. It is an indispensable tool and a graphic example of how to enrich public administration by drawing on the theories and methods of the humanities. - Reproduced.
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Articles
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Indian Institute of Public Administration | Volume no: 73, Issue no: 3 | Available | AR106377 |
This article seeks to broaden the craft of public administration by blurring genres. First, I explain the phrase blurring genres. Second, I provide some examples of early work in administrative ethnography. Third, I compare this early, modernist-empiricist ethnography with interpretive ethnography, suggesting researchers confront three choices: naturalism vs. anti-naturalism; intensive vs. hit-and-run fieldwork; and generalisation vs. local knowledge. After this general discussion, and fourth, I discuss the more prosaic issues that confront anyone seeking to use ethnography to study public administration and look at fieldwork roles, relevance, time, evidence and fieldwork relationships. Fifth, I describe and il ilustrate the several tools students of public administration can use as well as observation and interviews; namely, focus groups, para-ethnography, visual ethnography, and storytelling. Finally, I conclude that ethnographic fieldwork provides texture, depth and nuance, and lets interviewees explain the meaning of their actions. It is an indispensable tool and a graphic example of how to enrich public administration by drawing on the theories and methods of the humanities. - Reproduced.
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