A Visual Turn for Organizational Ethnography: Embodying the Subject in Video-Based Research

For organizational ethnography we argue that traditional philosophies of onto-epistemological realism be supplanted by interpretive and reflexive thinking to provide fresh theoretical assumptions and new methodological proposals for film- and video-based research. The argument is developed in three...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Organization studies Vol. 39; no. 10; pp. 1403 - 1424
Main Authors: Hassard, John, Burns, Diane, Hyde, Paula, Burns, John-Paul
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.10.2018
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects:
Documentary films
Embodiment
Epistemology
Ethnography
Logic
Methodological problems
Motion picture directors & producers
Motion pictures
Objectivity
Organization studies
Organization theory
Organizational research
Qualitative research
Realism
Reflexivity
Research methodology
Social problems
Sociology
Subjectivity
Theorists
Truth
Viewers
organization studies
embodiment
filmmaking
video
realism
documentary
ethnography
participatory
ISSN:0170-8406, 1741-3044
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:For organizational ethnography we argue that traditional philosophies of onto-epistemological realism be supplanted by interpretive and reflexive thinking to provide fresh theoretical assumptions and new methodological proposals for film- and video-based research. The argument is developed in three phases: First, to establish analytical context, we explore the historical evolution of the ethnographic organizational documentary and discuss habitual problems – methodological, philosophical and technical – that filmmakers have faced when claiming qualities of directness and objectivity in their work, that is, through the style of ‘film-truth’. Second, to advance new conceptual logic for video-based organizational research, we supplant the objectivist and realist philosophy underpinning traditional documentary filmmaking with sociologically interpretive and reflexive arguments for undertaking ethnography in organizations, a subjective process which importantly yields greater understanding of affect and embodiment. Finally, to define new methodological opportunities, these interpretive and reflexive arguments are marshalled to underpin a strategy of participatory thinking in video-based organizational ethnography – a ‘withness’ approach facilitating a greater sense of affect and embodiment as well as polyvocal interpretation of visual data; a practice which sees filmmakers, social theorists, participants and viewers alike united in analytical space.
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ISSN:0170-8406
1741-3044
DOI:10.1177/0170840617727782