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Dear all, Back in May I asked you for advice on researching conferences etc. as ethnographic research sites. I'm interested in conferences and conventions as ethnographic research sites. They are sites where dispersed communities of scholars, activists, business people etc. (depending on the conference) come together in one place to strengthen their ties, share knowledge, etc. Therefore, they seem worth studying from a qualitative/ethnographic perspective in the context of research questions about how knowledge is transferred globally through specific spaces, nodes, and infrastructures. I've had many many very helpful responses over the intervening months, right up to some that just came in this week. So, it's high time I shared. I hope I have managed to gather them all together and that the formatting below is ok (apologies if any slipped through the cracks). Thanks to all of you who helped me. I guess I'll better do something with all this now . . . Best, Eugene David Lodge has written some novels on academic life with lots of scenes in conferences-- such as "Small World" ----------------------- Harald Bathelt and Nina Schuldt have written a bit about trade fairs as sites of knowledge exchange. They make use of the cluster metaphor (calling them temporary clusters), and may have conducted some sort of participant observation. They are economic geographers in the more traditional sense (i.e., neither post-structuralists nor practicing regional scientists), but they might have something to offer. ----------------------- Becker (the sociologist, not the human capital economist) wrote something about observations of what happens at either music events or concert halls (where he was volunteering with the medical tent), and that might also provide a breadcrumb you can follow. One paper that I know tells of a failed attempt to observe a seminar of anthropologists, where the antropologists denied the author access: Williams, Sarah & in Collaboration with Klemmer, Frederick (1997) Ethnographic Fetishism or Cyborg Anthropology? Human Scientists, Rebellious Rats, and Their Mazes at El Delirio and in the Land of the Long White Cloud. In Downey, Gary Lee & Dumit, Joseph (Eds.) Cyborgs and Citadels. Anthropological Interventions in Emerging Sciences and Technologies. Santa Fe, SAR Press. ----------------------- There is an emerging scholarship on trade fairs and their role in innovation knowledge transfer. Most of this work comes from economic geographers, particularly Harald Bathelt. He has a co-authored paper called "Trade fairs as temporary clusters" (citation below), which sounds like a good start to think through knowledge transfers that occur among dispersed social actors who are concentrated in space for a short period of time. As you might know, the literature on economic clusters in econ geography deal with (tacit) knowledge transfer, and so this work might provide a useful methodological start. I also know that Wendy Larner is starting to look at major fashion shows (e.g., New York and Toronto's fashion weeks) as temporary clusters from the perspective of fashion as a cultural industry, so she might also be of help, especially since she seems more likely to do qualitative work. I wonder if Marilyn Strathern's edited collection titled Audit Cultures might be useful, particularly part IV with three articles focused on the academy (although I wonder if they might not speak specifically to the academic conference as a site). MASKELL, P./ BATHELT, H./ MALMBERG, A. (2006): Building Global Knowledge Pipelines: The Role of Temporary Clusters. In: European Planning Studies (Vol. 14) pp. 997-1013. BATHELT, H./ SCHULDT, N. A. (2005): Between Luminaries and Meat Grinders: International Trade Fairs as Temporary Clusters. SPACES 2005-06. Fachbereich Geographie, His website is here: <http://www.harald-bathelt.com/html/publicat.html>http://www.harald-bathelt.com/html/publicat.html ----------------------- The Swiss economic geographer Bernhard Fuhrer has been very busy at the last few conferences videoing participants (Tevor Barnes, for example) to talk about their experiences. The interviews are on the new econgeog 'facebook' at: http://econgeo.net/ Harald Bathelt (UofT) with Nina Schult has also been doing some work in this area: i.e. conferences as temporary sites for social network formation. Susan Hanson wrote a paper (in 2000, I think) about professional "networking" ----------------------- However, there have been some recent, excellent articles on using ethnographic methods for conferences. I'd highly recommend: Rinallo, D. and Golfetto, F. (2006). Representing markets: The shaping of fashion trends by french and Italian fabric companies. Industrial Marketing Management, 35:856-869. Consuming the American west: Animating cultural meaning and memory at a stock show and rodeo. Journal of Consumer Research, 28:369-398. and Borghini, S., Golf, G., and Rinallo, D. (2006). Ongoing search among industrial buyers. Journal of Business Research, 59:1151-1159. Maybe you could be interested in my particular approaches. If you read French, you can visit my site (<http://www.calberac.org>http://www.calberac.org) or visit the French and English website of a conference I organize upon fieldwork in geography (University of Artois, June 2008) : <http://terrain.ens-lsh.fr>http://terrain.ens-lsh.fr. ----------------------- Michel Maffesoli deals with similar social dimensions in his Time of Tribes. Looking at conference attendees from the perspective of Neo-Tribes might by quite productive. ----------------------- Howard, PN. 2002. Network ethnography and the hypermedia organization. New Media and Society 4(4): 550-74. This deals with doing ethnographies of 'knowledge networks' and 'communities of practice', which often cannot be conducted at the traditional, bounded 'field site'. Parry, B. 1998. Hunting the gene-hunters. Environment and Planning A 30(12): 2147-62 - proposes studying corporate elites via their 'spaces of communication'. It's not exactly what you are asking for, but in case it's helpful in some way... Deborah Tannen's work might be a useful reference at some point. If you're not familiar with her, she studies gendered discourse, and I think she might mention conferences in: Tannen D 2002 Agonism in academic discourse Journal of Pragmatics 34 1651-1669 Also, Emily Toth (The Ms. Mentor columnist in the Chronicles of Higher Ed) provides some tongue in cheek moments about conferences--in the archives of her column and in her book (Ms. Mentor's impeccable advice for women in academia). ----------------------- Presumably in your literature search you came up with Stanley Cohen's article from 1997; 'Conference life: The rough guide', The American Sociologist, Volume 28, Number 3, September 1997 , pp. 69-84 While not strictly ethnographic, it is peppered with insights and is actually one of the most (intentionally) amusing academic articles I've read for a while. Describes some of the unusual behaviours of conference attendees, and I recommend this to everyone. And especially if you're thinking of putting on a conference in the near future. You'll know what to look out for... "Laboratory Life" by Latour & Woolgar shows how scientific facts are made in a laboratory (just change "laboratory" into "conference"). Another good book would be "Science in Action" by Latour. ----------------------- Anne Meneley and Donna Young (Eds.) 2005. Auto-ethnographies: The Anthropology of Academic Practice. Peterborough: Broadview Press. Deborah Reed-Danahay (Ed.) 1997. Auto/Ethnography: Rewriting the Self and the Social. Oxford: Berg. ----------------------- I wonder if Janet Conway's work on the World Social Forum would be at all applicable? ----------------------- Do you know the book by Analiese Riles - titled "The Network Inside Out"? ----------------------- the last chapter in The Vulnerable Observer by feminist anthropologist Ruth Behar. ----------------------- You might want to look at the work of Harald Bathelt, Peter Maskell and Anders Malmberg - they have written on this quite a bit (trade shows, conventions, 'events' etc as 'temporary clusters' or global pipelines) - although I am not sure they have really explicitly discussed the methodological aspects of this but perhaps useful? ----------------------- http://org.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/15/2/233 Organization, Vol. 15, No. 2, 233-250 (2008) DOI: 10.1177/1350508407086582 © 2008 SAGE Publications Fear and Loathing in Harrogate, or a Study of a Conference Jackie Ford University of Bradford School of Management, Bradford, UK, [log in to unmask] Nancy Harding University of Bradford School of Management, Bradford, UK, [log in to unmask] There have been no studies in organization research of conferences as part of the world of work. This paper describes a reflexive ethnographic study of one management conference. It finds that upon arrival at the places and spaces of the conference processes of self-making as conference attendee are set in train. Self-making subsequently takes place within processes of domination and subordination, achieved through fear, infantilization, disparagement and seduction. Reading this through the lens of Freudian-informed interpretations of the Hegelian master/slave dialectic, the paper argues that conferences are one of the means of control over academic, managerial and professional employees. Control is achieved through dialectical interactions between conference and employee. Key Words: conferences ? Hegelian dialectic ? Jessica Benjamin ? mechanisms of control ? reflexive ethnography ----------------------- When you go to such journals as Symbolic Interaction, you will find a number of examples there of ethnographic research on internet events. The work by Denis Wakul is particularly interesting. I have the highest regard for geographers for they seem to be doing so much cutting-edge research. ----------------------- I am looking at the bicycle trade show as a performance of trade. Goffman, who I'm sure you've come across, is always suggested to me. However he seems to focus more on the subtle points of interaction such as facial expressions while I am more interested in how the actual structure is put together to facilitate the performance (ie the booths at the trade shows). I'm not sure if my descriptions are the best but here are a few articles I've been looking at on the subject. Gregson, Nicky; Rose, Gillian (2000). Taking Butler elsewhere: performativities, spatialities and subjectivities. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 18. pp. 433-452 -This article examines two cases of performance and how they define the good. Crang,P (1994). It's showtime: on the workplace geographies of display in a restaurant in southeast England. Society and Space. 12:6 pp 675-704 -this seems to be the quintessential source (perhaps I am being to generous) on ethnomethodolgy. It's all about how the restaurant works and the social interactions that build the customer experience. Moisio, Risto; Arnould, Eric J (2005). Extending the dramaturgical framework in marketing: Drama structure, drama interaction and drama content in shopping experiences. Journal of consumer behaviour. Vol 4. 246-256 -This is more of a businessy paper on using performance of the customer in market research Gereffi, Gary et al... (2008). Value chains, networks and clusters: reframing the global automotive industry. Journal of Economic Geography. 8 pp/ 297-321 -He talks about value chains and the importance of trust. It's not really ethnographic but rather shows the importance of trust (may not be so useful to you) Performance, Ethnomethodology and Dramatology seem to be somewhat good words for searches. ----------------------- At the Society for Applied Anthropologists 2008 meeting, I attended a presentation in which the author discussed conservationists and NGOs, whom she was studying ethnographically and using conferences as part of her way of doing so. The relevant presentation was by Maria A. Colom B and titled "Conservationists and NGOs in Central Africa: An Ethnographic Approach". The SfAA program should have the full abstract. Her contact email, as listed in the meeting's program, is <mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask] . -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dr. Eugene McCann Department of Geography Simon Fraser University 8888 University Drive Burnaby, British Columbia, V5A 1S6 Canada Email: [log in to unmask] Phone (Direct): 778.782.4599 Phone (Departmental Office): 778.782.3321 Fax: 778.782.5841 http://www.sfu.ca/geography/people/faculty/eugenemccann/index.html