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Call for Papers
Ethnographic methods in economic geography: Applications and potentials
Royal Geographical Society-IBG Annual Conference, London, 31st August-2nd September 2016
Session sponsorship: Economic Geography Research Group (EGRG)
Abstract:
Recent trends have highlighted the value of perspectives that treats money and economic relations as integral parts of society rather than as something semi-detached from the social world. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, even the deputy governor of the Bank of England suggested that credit markets should be understood as social constructs embedded in trust or confidence (as the etymological root of ‘credit’ suggests). Ethnographic studies of the everyday experiences and ideologies of investment bankers demonstrate that highly unstable market systems are produced and justified through practices that are culturally meaningful to the actors involved (Hertz 1998; Ho 2009). New work from developing economies shows how the emerging politics of (re)distribution can be investigated through ethnographic research with the poor (Ferguson, 2015). Furthermore, the shift in the global economic point of gravity towards countries with a larger informal sector underscores the need to take informality seriously and approach informality and formality as a structural blending rather than discrete spheres (Phillips 2011). The realities in informal environments are not captured in official statistics, annual reports, or legal rulings, and the economic actors depend on non-state solutions to regulatory challenges. There is a long tradition for applying ethnographic methods to study economic lives during ‘uncertain transitions’ (Burawoy & Verdery 1999), for example in post-Socialist Eastern Europe and African countries subjected to structural adjustment programs. Uncertainty and austerity now strongly affect many areas and groups in the Global North, and these places and communities can be put under an ethnographic microscope to enrich theories about global processes from the ground up.
In this session, we invite both submissions that present the results of ethnographic research in economic geography from across the global North and South and papers focusing specifically on methodology. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Moral economies
- Theorizing from ethnographic material
- Economic ethnographies in translocal fields
- Studying economic flows through single-sited ethnography
- Ethics in ethnographic research
- Studying economic informality/illegality
- Mixed-method research
- Economic hybridity
- The social dynamics of remittances, micro-credit and e-commerce
- Ethnographies of finance and financialization
- Ethnographic studies of GCCs/GVCs/GPNs
- Access in fieldwork
- Reflexivity and positionality
- Social welfare programs and direct cash transfers
Convenors: Heidi Østbø Haugen, PhD. Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo
Andrew Brooks, PhD. Department of Geography, King’s College London.
Please submit abstracts of circa 200 words by Friday 12th February 2016 to Heidi Østbø Haugen ([log in to unmask]) and Andrew Brooks ([log in to unmask]). Please include author name(s), author affiliation(s), author email(s), paper title, and an indication of which author(s) will be presenting. We will notify all authors of whether their paper can be accommodated in the session by 16th February at the latest (this will allow the conference deadline of 19th February to be met).
Dr Andrew Brooks
Lecturer in Development Geography & Undergraduate Tutor
Department of Geography
King's College London
Strand, London
WC2R 2LS
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Editor: Journal of Southern African Studies
New Book: Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Second-Hand Clothes, Zed Books
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Email: [log in to unmask]
Tel: +44 (0)20 7848 2571
Office: K7.50, 7th Floor King’s Building, Strand, London, WC2R 2LS
Twitter: @DrABrooks
King’s Web: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/geography/people/academic/brooks/index.aspx