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ETHNOGRAPHY, ETHNOGRAPHERS AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH:
COMMUNITIES, TENSIONS AND AFFILIATIONS
Peter Lugosi, PhD
Oxford School of Hospitality Management
Oxford Brookes University
plugosi@brookes.ac.uk
This is the accepted, pre-proof version. This was published as: Lugosi, P., 2009.
Ethnography, Ethnographers and Hospitality Research: Communities, Tensions
and Affiliations.
Tourism and Hospitality Planning and Development
, 6 (2), pp.
95-107. DOI: 10.1080/14790530902981431. Please consult the final published
version if citing.
Abstract
This paper examines the professional and moral positions of ethnographers
located in institutions specializing in hospitality management. The paper
considers the notion of ethnographic subjectivity and argues that
ethnographers working in various paradigmatic contexts have differing
relationships with the principles and practices of social science, organisation
studies and commercial activity. It is suggested that they are simultaneously
members of disparate communities with conflicting norms and values. The
paper identifies the cultural and institutional forces that shape the absence,
presence and the potential future of ethnography in hospitality management
research.
Keywords: ethnography, ethnographer, hospitality, management, business
schools, research, community
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Introduction
There is a long and rich tradition of ethnographic research in commercial
hospitality organisations (cf. Whyte, 1948; Spradley and Mann, 1975; Mars and
Nicod, 1984; Marshall, 1986; Paules, 1991; Crang, 1994; Fine, 1996; Sosteric,
1996; Erickson, 2004; Sherman, 2005). These studies emerged from the
disciplinary traditions of sociology, anthropology and geography, and the
majority were conducted by academics from outside the management research
community. Rather than address the immediate concerns of commercial
operators, this body of work appears to have been written for a social scientific
audience. The historical relationship between hospitality management
scholarship and ethnography is fragmented and ethnography remains an
underused methodology. However, the landscape of hospitality management
research is changing and the methods and epistemologies of ethnography are
increasingly being applied by management academics to this area of
commercial activity. Recent studies have used ethnographic methods and
principles to investigate customer participation (Lugosi, 2006, 2007), homestay
hospitality (Lynch, 2005), emotional labour (Seymour and Sandiford, 2005),
foodservice operations management (Gramling et al., 2005), service quality
(Huettman and Brownell, 1997) and empowerment (Hughes, 1997). The
growing role of ethnography in this area of organisational research raises a
number of important questions for ethnographers located in institutions
specializing in hospitality. These questions concern the intellectual and moral
positions that ethnographers occupy, the fundamental purpose of such applied
research and the interests these studies serve.
This paper has two aims: first, to examine the shifting, often liminal statuses of
ethnographers located in institutions specializing in hospitality, and in the
related areas of tourism and leisure management; and second, to identify the
institutional and cultural practices that shape both the application of
ethnography in research on these commercial activities, and the professional
and moral statuses of those academics who seek to apply its principles to the
study of hospitality organisations. This paper is speculative rather than
authoritative, and it therefore invites commentary and criticism from
ethnographers. It is argued that ethnographers studying these areas of social
and commercial activity act as members of multiple communities, and they
therefore have obligations to a wide range of interest groups that include
hospitality academics, industry practitioners and social scientists. These
disparate interest groups often have conflicting norms and values, which
potentially displaces ethnographers from each of them. By reflecting on these
issues, this paper provides an insight into the state of ethnographic research on
hospitality organisations, and it informs a critique of contemporary institutional
practices that have the potential to marginalise applied ethnographers.
Consequently, it is part of a broader process of change within hospitality
studies.
Within the management research community a critical management studies
(CMS) movement has emerged that has challenged existing orthodoxies of
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organisational research, education and practice (Alvesson and Willmott, 1992,
2003; Grey and Willmott, 2005a). In a similar way, hospitality management
research has developed to a point where academics are questioning existing
assumptions about the nature of hospitality and the fundamental principles
underpinning hospitality research (cf. Lashley et al., 2007b). More importantly,
Grey and Willmott (2005b) argue that their work is an attempt to institutionalise
CMS, i.e. to highlight common themes, identify different perspectives and locate
CMS in a broader historical, political and institutional context. In a similar way,
this paper is part of a process of institutionalisation: others have already begun
to identify the shortcomings of existing hospitality management research,
potential issues for this fragmented community and common themes for future
research (cf. Lashley and Morrison, 2000; Lashley et al. 2007; Morrison and
Lynch, 2007; Lugosi, 2008); this paper seeks to identify the roles and positions
of ethnographers in this emerging movement. Above all, this paper is intended
to be a point of reference for all ethnographers seeking to apply the methods
and epistemologies of ethnography to these and other related areas of
management studies. This is necessary and important for a number of reasons:
firstly, it can help to identify a sense of shared interest among applied
ethnographers working in these fields; secondly, it can help build cooperative
networks between different academic communities and thus institutionalise a
broader hospitality research agenda; and thirdly, it can inform important
debates about the roles that ethnographers have in different communities and
about their obligations to other members.
The paper begins by exploring the notion of ethnographic subjectivity before
considering the potentially contradictory relationships that different types of
ethnographers share with the principles and practices of social science,
management studies and industrial activity. It subsequently discusses the
cultural, commercial and ideological forces operating in academic communities
that marginalise ethnographic practice, and potentially exclude those who seek
to apply ethnographic methods and epistemologies to the study of hospitality
organisations.
Ethnographic subjectivity
Numerous authors have put forward their definitions of ethnography and it is
not the intention to offer a detailed review (cf. Hammersley and Atkinson,
1995; Fetterman, 1998; Willis and Trondman, 2000; O’Reilly, 2005).
Nevertheless, it is important to highlight four distinguishing features of
ethnographic practice: first, that it requires researchers to live and/or work
among groups of people for extended periods; second, it involves the creation
of emic understandings of human experience, which are communicated through
rich accounts; third, although it may not be equally important for all its
practitioners, ethnographers are sensitised to the problematic nature of power
inherent in relationships between informants and them, and fourth, by
extension, they have come to problematise ethnographic representation of
individuals and groups.
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These are important characteristics because the long-term engagement with
individuals and groups that allows for the development of emic perspectives
requires ethnographers to build relationships and trust through ongoing
reciprocal exchange. Some academics argue that inclusion, trust, a critical
awareness of power and the problematic nature of representation are features
of all contemporary, enlightened qualitative inquiry (Denzin and Lincoln, 2005a,
2005b). However, while issues surrounding the development and maintenance
of relationships, and the associated issues of obligations and reciprocities may
be part of qualitative inquiry in general, they are fundamental to ethnographic
practice and to the development of ethnographic knowledge. Furthermore,
although power and the politics of research may not be central concerns in all
applied or marketplace ethnographies, a reflexive consideration of these
subjects is again a fundamental aspect of contemporary ethnographic practice
(Davies, 1999). Consequently, awareness of these issues is central to being an
ethnographer, and the ethnographic sensibility or ‘consciousness’ (Linstead,
1997) may therefore provide a particular subjectivity or subjective experience of
groups, communities, organisations and notions of identity.
As Coffey (1999) suggests the relationships between ethnographers and
informants shape and are shaped by the identities of fieldworkers. This shaping
of identities includes impression management and surface acting (Goffman,
1990) and deep acting (Hochschild, 1983), where individuals try to change the
way they are supposed to feel and act, but it is fundamentally about a shifting
sense of self, which is underpinned by how we sincerely feel about ourselves
and how we maintain relationships with those around us. There are numerous
accounts in which ethnographers reveal their sense of multiple selves – where
they discuss a simultaneous sense of familiarity and belonging alongside
distance, strangeness and outsideness before, during and after fieldwork (cf.
Powdermaker, 1966; Coffey, 1999; Davies, 1999; see also Humphreys et al.,
2003). The tensions caused by mixed intellectual affiliations in universities is
also highlighted in several other accounts of academic lives (e.g. Lennon and
Wood, 1992; Lau and Pasquini, 2004, 2008). It is important to stress this sense
of belonging and alienation, familiarity and strangeness, inclusion and exclusion
when discussing the positionality and subjectivity of ethnographers working in
applied areas of hospitality management.
Ethnographic types, institutional practices and affiliations
Having identified particular aspects of the ethnographic self (or selves) and
ethnographic practice, this section considers how its practitioners may develop
different positionalities that stem from the obligations and commitments they
have to the various groups or institutions with which they are associated.
Within this part of the paper a distinction is made between different types of
ethnographers based on the intellectual contexts in which individuals begin
their careers, develop their craft and subsequently apply their knowledge. It is
undoubtedly problematic to attempt to capture the experience of applied
ethnographers through the typology proposed below, just as it is problematic to
talk about ethnographers as a particular type of person i.e. reflexive, ethically
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engaged and conscious of his or her shifting and fluid sense of identity. The
discussion of these issues does not necessarily assume a particular, fixed
identity for ethnographers; instead it highlights those forces that shape the
ongoing process of identity formation. It points to some of the objective aspects
of being an academic in a particular intellectual context, while also considering
what may shape the subjective experience of ethnographers within these
contexts.
Institutional, disciplinary, paradigmatic and cultural forces have the potential to
create
rooted
,
migrant
and
accreted
ethnographers. Rooted ethnographers are
social scientists who gain their education in sociology, anthropology and
geography departments, and who continue to teach and research in these
institutional contexts and intellectual traditions. The notion of rootedness is not
used pejoratively to suggest insularity or intellectual stagnation; rather, it
follows Kuhn’s (1996) observations about academic paradigms and Knorr
Cetina’s (1999) work on epistemic cultures. Within academia, knowledge
generating systems reflect as well as shape a particular field of inquiry. These
systems have a cultural dimension, involving a convergence of beliefs and
customs, as well as a behavioural dimension insofar as they shape the actions
and interactions of practitioners. These systems also have material, spatial and
technological aspects, which influence how researchers engage with each other
and with the objects of their inquiry (see e.g. Knorr Cetina, 1999). Finally they
also have a structural dimension that involves a range of political, societal,
economic and institutional pressures, which interacts with and consequently
shapes cultural and behavioural patterns. These systems focus intellectual
inquiry; they create expectations, set particular challenges and also generate
criteria that are used to evaluate notions of quality, progress or success. These
systems are of course dynamic and intellectual divergences, emerging
specialism, institutional rivalries and interpersonal tensions undoubtedly create
different groups and factions within academia (Becher and Trowler, 2001).
According to Becher and Trowler (2001) such groupings may take a number of
different forms with varying sizes, configurations, complexity and coherence.
Moreover, as Lau and Pasquini (2004, 2008) suggest, academics with
interdisciplinary backgrounds and research interests may experience exclusion
from those engaged in work that falls within more established disciplines, sub-
disciplines and their specialist areas. Nevertheless, the centrifugal forces that
accentuate differences operate in contrast to centripetal forces that create
shared codes, standards, norms and expectations for academics (Becher and
Trowler, 2001). Such forces encourage rooted ethnographers to draw on the
methodological, epistemological, linguistic and cultural norms of specialist
areas, and also to engage in debate, both in person and in writing, with
colleagues in their fields. Such forces are likely to shape their research
endeavours, while helping to determine which disciplinary, sub-disciplinary or
related specialist subject events academics attend. They are likely also to drive
academics to publish primarily, though not exclusively, in particular discipline or
sub-discipline-specific journals, and in many cases write extensive ethnographic
monographs.
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Migrant ethnographers are academics who gain their initial training in traditional
social science institutions, but who go on to work in business faculties and
departments. Mars (2004) identifies a number of migrant ethnographers with
anthropological backgrounds working in business schools and in tourism
departments. Mars is a good example himself: he read economics and social
anthropology at Cambridge, before completing his PhD in anthropology at the
London School of Economics. He subsequently went on to work in a number of
management schools and published on human resource issues in hotel and
catering, hotel pilfering as well as co-writing The World of Waiters. [1]
Lennon and Wood (1992) reflect upon the experiences of such academics who
teach sociology in hotel and catering courses. They have to adapt and apply
their existing knowledge base to suit the specialist area as well as incorporating
existing paradigmatic and cultural practices that already circulate in those
departments and schools. The intellectual activities of migrant ethnographers,
coupled with the expectations of the institutions in which they work, are likely
to encourage them to engage with various academic networks – some of which
have closer ties to social science while others to applied practice. The applied
nature of their work also forces migrant ethnographers to have some
awareness and potentially some contact with practitioners and their cultures.
Furthermore, the inter or trans-disciplinary nature of their field and the
intellectual communities with which they become affiliated may mean they are
as or even more likely to publish work in interdisciplinary, subject-specific
journals rather than those with an overt disciplinary focus.
Accreted ethnographers are individuals introduced to the concepts and methods
of social science, often by migrant or other accreted ethnographers, in the
context of management education. Within such courses, anthropological and
sociological concepts are taught alongside business principles. Accreted
ethnographers continue to work in business or management faculties and
simultaneously apply social scientific and commercial principles in their teaching
and research. Their intellectual interests may draw heavily on social science,
which may subsequently be reflected in their publications and research
activities as well as the diverse networks with which they become involved.
Sometimes these interests and activities are congruent with the institutional
discourses of management and business faculties, but these may also be
sources of tension.
All three types of ethnographers have obligations to multiple communities,
which may have very different, perhaps even conflicting interests. It is certainly
the case that the commercial agencies with which migrant and accreted
ethnographers become affiliated often have radically different interests, values
and norms to many social scientists. A professional, commercially focused
community desires greater levels of productivity, efficiency and income, and
mainstream applied organisational or management research perpetuates and
advances these interests. Feminist, critical and postmodern discourses of social
science suggest that research should expose or problematise iniquitous social
structures and asymmetric power relations (cf. Fine et al., 2000; Pilcher and
Juneau, 2002; Denzin and Lincoln, 2005b). At the very least, ethnographers
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and other social scientists should avoid exploiting people and undermining their
positions in society. Not every advocate of ethnography subscribes to these
ideological, often politicised, ethical positions. Nor is everyone necessarily
writing within the later ‘moments’ of qualitative research in which these values
are deemed to be inescapable features of research and knowledge generation
(Denzin and Lincoln, 2005b). Nevertheless, it is difficult to assume that anyone
engaging in ethnographic research is unaware of the fundamental issues that
have problematised the nature of qualitative inquiry and ethnographic research.
The intellectual identities and academic practices of applied ethnographers are
inevitably shaped by the competing professional and moral ideologies at the
core of social science and management praxis. Consequently, the extent to
which migrant and accreted ethnographers can and do participate in the
activities of either commercial or social scientific communities may be restricted.
They are potentially displaced professionally, intellectually and morally from
both. Such displacement may be experienced as a sense of unease regarding
their identities and inclusion in, or exclusion from, particular academic
communities (see for example Lau and Pasquini, 2004, 2008). This may be
amplified by a perceived or actual absence of support from appropriate
advocacy networks and professional bodies. Beyond a psychological experience,
displacement may also emerge as a real inability to access social networks,
institutions, funding, jobs and academic forums, including publication outlets. It
may also be evident in the devaluing or marginalisation of work in institutional
performance reviews (Lau and Pasquini, 2008). The remaining part of this
paper considers the underlying factors that continue to present challenges for
ethnographers working in hospitality management schools. Moreover, it
discusses the tensions that emerge from the competing forces encountered by
ethnographers.
Ethnography, ethnographers and hospitality management research
When conducting research in hospitality organisations, migrant and accreted
ethnographers are confronted by a range of conflicting professional and
institutional forces. Mainstream hospitality research clearly serves a practitioner
community. Historically, teaching and research in these areas has been driven
by the discourses of management (Airey and Tribe, 2000; Botterill, 2000). The
spectre, or ‘tyranny’ (Lashley et al., 2007b), of industry relevance continues to
cast its influence over hospitality scholarship. The location of hospitality
management teaching within business schools, and the dominance of the term
‘management’ rather than ‘studies’ in course descriptors (see Jameson and
Walmsley, 2006) reflect both the dominant business focus of hospitality
education, and the ways in which institutions position their courses in the
academic marketplace. Competing approaches to hospitality research have
emerged in these institutions and among these scholarly communities.
Academics have attempted to develop social science driven management
research (Slattery, 1983), social science informed academic curricula (Morrison
and O’Mahony, 2003; Morrison and O’Gorman, 2008) and a broader research
agenda for the study of hospitality in society (Lashley and Morrison, 2000;
Lashley et al., 2007). However, the management focus of hospitality research is
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evident in the subject-specific literature; the dominance of quantitative over
qualitative methods in hospitality research continues to exist (see Hemming et
al., 2005; Crawford-Welch and McCleary, 1992; Jones, 1998; Taylor and Edgar,
1996, 1999), and the methods and epistemologies of ethnography remain
underutilised in hospitality research.
Pizam’s (2008) recent keynote address at the Council for Hospitality
Management Education (CHME) Conference in Glasgow illustrates the dominant
discourses of hospitality management research. Pizam (2008) identified four
generations of hospitality management researchers. He argued that the three
earlier generations relied principally on descriptive case studies, univariate and
bi-variate statistical analysis respectively and largely borrowed, reproduced and
extended existing social science or business principles. In contrast, members of
the fourth generation use multi-variate analysis to generate original theoretical
and empirical contributions to knowledge. He then went on to discuss a study
by Riviera and Upchurch (2008) that examines published articles in the
International Journal of Hospitality Management (IJHM) and highlighted the
range of statistical analysis employed by authors. Pizam (2008) concluded that
the use of sophisticated statistical techniques was further evidence that
hospitality management research had ‘come of age.’ The foregrounding of
statistical analysis reflects the reproduction of existing discourses of what is
appropriate hospitality management research. Moreover, when asked his
opinion on the role of qualitative research, Pizam said that there was a place for
it in hospitality research and he did not rule out its publication in the IJHM, but
said that it too often lacked methodological rigour and generalisability. The
statement that conceptual and empirical rigour is necessary for qualitative
research is legitimate and the sentiment is laudable, but the underlying
assumptions, both about the criteria for rigour and the appropriateness of
notions of generalisability conflict with many emerging discourses of qualitative
inquiry. Qualitative researchers talk about subjectivity, positionality,
authenticity, aesthetic merit, reflexivity, morality and an overt ethical
consciousness, reciprocity, criticality, political engagement, emancipation,
polyvocality and giving voice to silenced and unrepresented groups, (cf. Lincoln,
1995; Denzin, 2003; Denzin and Lincoln, 2000, 2005a; Richardson, 2000). It is
difficult to see how these notions of quality, rigour and value square with the
positivist discourses of mainstream hospitality management research.
Hospitality management academics who perpetuate dominant research
paradigms, the institutions in which they are located, and the commercial
agencies with which they are affiliated, form a community of interest. It may be
problematic to think about hospitality management academics and practitioners
as a distinct community; nevertheless, it is clear that operators have a business
focus and a common desire for capital generation, and that hospitality
academia has traditionally sought to emulate the values and norms of the
practitioner community. It is perhaps more useful to think of this as an
interdependent network of agencies that perpetuate particular ideological,
organisational and intellectual discourses about the value and aim of knowledge
and practice. As Becher and Trowler (2001) acknowledge, there may be
9
idiosyncratic differences within disciplinary or sub-disciplinary academic
groupings, but there are patterns to be found in their cultural and institutional
practices. The existence of this network or community manifests itself in what
Tribe has called a ‘knowledge force-field’ (2006: 362) – the cultural and
institutional practices ‘which mediate in the process where the phenomenal
world of [hospitality] is translated into its known world’ (ibid.). These practices
shape and legitimize a particular body of knowledge generated about
hospitality. Historically, the body of knowledge around hospitality has been
dominated by technocratic, rationalistic discourses, and the majority of research
seeks to advance the interests of commercial organisations rather than their
staff, consumers or other stakeholders
Migrant and accreted ethnographers are potentially displaced from such a
practitioner-focused academic community for a number of reasons. Firstly,
hospitality academics have historically strived to legitimize their teaching and
research practices (cf. Taylor and Edgar, 1999; Wood, 1999; Litteljohn, 2004).
The idiosyncratic and highly subjective knowledge developed through
participant observation, and the interpretative nature of ethnography, does not
offer the same level of methodological and epistemological credibility as such
well established methods as questionnaires, the statistical analysis of
operational data sets or formal interviews, which have largely underpinned this
field of inquiry. It is certainly difficult to justify the relevance for practitioners of
the abstract epistemological and ethical debates surrounding knowledge
generation and the politics of representation. Secondly, because ethnographic
studies frequently expose unsavoury business practices, such research
threatens to undermine the dominant discourses of hospitality management
education and business practice (see e.g., Mars and Nicod, 1984; Peacock and
Kübler, 2001; Lugosi, 2007). Contemporary ethnographic critiques are echoed
in the emerging debates of critical management studies, which challenge the
established ontologies, epistemologies and general authority of management
ideology and practice (Fournier and Grey, 2000). Lastly, because ethnographic
research is concerned with social relationships, structures, institutions and
practices that may overlap with, but are not limited to, commercial hospitality
contexts, such research stretches beyond the interests of most hospitality
academics and practitioners.
At a workshop in 2005 on the application of anthropology in multi-disciplinary
departments, several established authors in the areas of leisure, tourism and
hospitality claimed that they constantly struggled to have their ethnographic
insights recognized by practitioners. Moreover, it was clear that many have
come into conflict with academic managers reluctant to accept the
foregrounding of ethnographic or anthropological practice within course content
(see Scott and Lugosi, 2005). This reflects, albeit anecdotally, the professional
discourses, the institutional practices and the market realities that shape
teaching and research in these areas. Within business schools, migrant and
accreted ethnographers often challenge existing cultural and institutional
practices, and they represent a disruptive element. Schouten (2004: 485) goes
further in noting that ‘in business schools the practice of ethnography itself is
10
generally considered deviant.’ Consequently, ethnographers risk being
marginalised in these organisational settings and displaced from a community
of educators or scholars who seek to serve a practitioner community.
The limited presence of ethnographic research in hospitality management is
clearly evident in the profile and publications history of the leading subject
specific journals (e.g., Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management, International Journal of Hospitality
Management and the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research) (see also
Taylor and Edgar, 1999). There may be a number of explanations for this.
Maybe few ethnographic studies have had the appropriate focus or have been
of sufficient quality. It may be because editorial board members or the current
pool of reviewers of hospitality journals have a limited understanding of
ethnographic praxis. However, it is important not to draw any rash conclusions
about the editorial policies of these journals. Sandiford and Seymour’s (2007)
recent discussion paper in the IJHM on the analysis of ethnographic data
demonstrates that ethnography can provide contributions to knowledge
development in hospitality management research, but this is still only one of
very few articles to overtly employ and examine ethnographic practice in a
hospitality context. The relative invisibility of ethnographic research may reflect
the unfamiliarity of hospitality management academics with these methods, or
their lack of confidence in applying ethnography to advance management
practice. The time-consuming nature of ethnography may make it prohibitive
for full time hospitality academics to pursue it effectively. It may also stem from
writers’ conceptions about what the hospitality research community perceives to
be good research. If this is the case, it is not just the traditional gatekeepers of
academic publishing – the editors and reviewers – who continue to perpetuate
existing definitions of hospitality research, but ethnographers themselves.
Finally, the very nature of ethnographic analysis and writing may inhibit
researchers from submitting to hospitality management journals. As Bate
(1997) notes, the length and messiness of ethnographies can make it difficult to
publish them in management journals with tight restrictions on length and style.
Humphreys et al. (2003) also note that the limited length of journal articles may
hinder the development of rich, nuanced ethnographic texts. This is
compounded by the growing influence of the metrics culture and the UK
Research Assessment Exercise (and its international equivalents), which place
emphasis on the continuous production of published outputs. Most hospitality
management journals publish relatively short articles and have a backlog of
papers, and therefore do not appear to be viable outlets for complex, lengthy
ethnographies. At best, as Sandiford and Seymour’s (2007) work suggests,
ethnography has to be tempered to make it palatable for a hospitality
management audience.
It is interesting to note that several of the workshop participants also
emphasized that they did not attempt to publish their work in mainstream
anthropology or sociology journals because they felt the editors would be
hostile to such applied research – a point rejected by several anthropologists
representing ‘traditional’ anthropology departments. It seemed that some of
11
these applied ethnographers also felt displaced from well-established
communities of anthropologists or sociologists. [2] Mars (2004) points to similar
tensions in his discussion of the unacknowledged role of applied anthropologists
working outside traditional anthropology departments in business schools and
outside academia. Misconceptions about editorial policies may account for the
absence of ethnography in hospitality management journals, and for the under-
representation of applied ethnographic research on hospitality in mainstream
sociology and anthropology journals. The invisibility of this kind of applied
ethnographic research may also stem from the simple fact that few authors
have historically published their work in these journals, rather than any
systematic polices of exclusion.
Conclusion
Pizam (2008) has argued that the increased sophistication of quantitative
techniques in hospitality management research demonstrates the maturing of
the subject. While it is fair to suggest that this is evidence of development, this
paper points to other, equally important indicators of progress. Hospitality
academics have begun to question the fundamental orthodoxies that underpin,
contextualise, and to some extent, force particular trajectories for their
research. Academics working in the disciplines of sociology and anthropology
have been questioning for some time whose interests they serve and how their
research is used (cf. Becker, 1967; Fine et al., 2000; Price, 2005). Management
academics working in the CMS tradition have also reflected critically, both on
management and academia’s relationship with it (Fournier and Grey, 2000).
Arguably, the fact that hospitality academics have also reached this level of
critical self-awareness, and have begun to engage in these debates, is an
equally important sign of the maturing of the subject area.
CMS writers have critiqued emergent CMS work on theoretical and ethical
grounds (Wray-Bliss, 2002), but also because of the way CMS academics
engage with, or rather, fail to engage with, management (Clegg et al., 2006).
Clegg et al.’s (2006) point is particularly important. The challenge is not simply
to engage in radical critiques of management, which cast scorn on
management practice, but do little to change it. Nor should we attempt to
create factions of hospitality researchers; rather, we should be developing
critical approaches that can inform management practice, but above all, enrich
students and practitioners’ understanding of hospitality in its social and
commercial forms. Recognising and developing ethnography is part of the
theoretical and methodological pluralism necessary for the future evolution of
hospitality education and research. Ethnography can provide a nuanced,
contextually sensitive understanding of the many different manifestations of
hospitality in contemporary society. Moreover, the principles of reflexivity,
criticality and ethical consciousness at the heart of ethnographic practice also
provide the basis from which to develop the reflective learners and socially
responsible practitioners championed by Lashley (1999), Tribe (2002) and
Morrison and O’Mahony (2003).
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Currently, the conflicting interests of different communities of academics and
practitioners perpetuate the separation of ethnographic research from
hospitality management practice. It is possible to argue that the differences in
the ethics and values of these communities are irreconcilable. Most practitioners
are not ethnographers and probably have little appetite for the esoteric
academic critiques developed through ethnographic research. The majority of
hospitality management academics, driven by the need to demonstrate their
professionalism and industry relevance will undoubtedly struggle to engage with
or integrate ethnographic methods and epistemologies into their working
practices. Lastly, many social scientists appear to be locked in disciplinary
traditions in which they either engage in a perpetual cycle of abstract,
philosophical debate, or add to a body of work that questions dominant
management practices, but isolates these critiques in academic communities.
Added to this is the influence of forces such as the Research Assessment
Exercise, which relies on a narrow set of performance indicators and a narrow
definition of utility and value, which further risks displacing ethnography and
ethnographers.
There are undoubtedly a series of structural factors and resource constraints
that hinder the development of ethnography in hospitality research. Academics
with full teaching loads and managerial responsibilities are constrained by the
demands placed on them by the academic institutions in which they are
located, and are thus unable to engage in lengthy participant observation and
cultural immersion. Whereas it may be an accepted part of anthropology
departmental cultures for staff to take extended periods of leave to conduct
fieldwork, this is not part of the institutional norms of hospitality management
departments. Lengthy ethnographic fieldwork may be a luxury of doctoral
candidates with fewer life commitments rather than working academics,
particularly women and those with family commitments. Even among doctoral
candidates, the lack of experienced researchers who can encourage and
develop the capabilities of future generations of hospitality researchers may
limit the number employing ethnographic approaches. Nevertheless, the appeal
of a broader, critically informed hospitality studies is increasing and there are a
growing number of social scientists and accreted ethnographers working in this
field. This is reflected in conferences such as CHME, which in 2008 attracted a
greater number of hospitality studies papers than management ones.
Consequently, people entering hospitality academia are still socialised into the
community and its heritage, but are they entering a community with a wider set
of interests and intellectual capacities.
Alternative conceptions of hospitality are emerging (cf. Lashley and Morrison,
2000; Morrison, 2002; Lashley et al., 2007; Lugosi, 2008), and it is evident that
ethnographers have a central role in transforming the institutional practices that
perpetuate existing discourses of scholarship. However, before the dominant
academic and practitioner cultures can be challenged further, there is a need to
develop a body of applied organisational research that drives this process of
change. To develop this body of knowledge, it will be necessary to build
networks between hospitality academics, social scientists working outside the
13
constraints of management education, the growing number of applied
ethnographers working in business and management schools and open minded
practitioners. The extent to which fragmented networks of individuals can
develop into consistent communities of interest will ultimately depend on the
intellectual interests of its members, their sense of collective identity, and their
ability to force academic host institutions to accommodate emerging
approaches to the study of hospitality. A crucial set of questions for such a
community concern the criteria by which its members evaluate ethnographic
research. Is it according to the ethical standards that research sets and
maintains? Is it the ability of such work to engender change in organizational
practices that benefits workers, customers and a global community? Or is it the
extent to which research drives operational efficiency or improves profits?
Asking and answering these questions will undoubtedly shape the foundations
of this community and help to define the identities of its members.
Notes
1. It is interesting to highlight Slattery’s (1985, 133) review of The World of
Waiters in which he criticises Mars and Nicod for being ‘non-hotel researchers’
who are ‘outsiders to the hotel world, making sorties into hotels then
withdrawing to their more general disciplines.’ His comments reflect the
tensions between applied ethnographers or anthropologists and committed
hospitality academics.
2. At the 2005 workshop David Mills presented the results of a Higher Education
Academy Sociology, Anthropology and Politics Subject Network (C-SAP) funded
research project that examined what anthropologists did after leaving
university. One of the questions from the audience was why the study only
looked at traditional anthropology department, while not considering the many
anthropologists who gain their academic qualifications in non-anthropology
departments. David’s response suggested that anthropologists outside
anthropology departments were not considered. Although the difficulties of
finding self-defined anthropologists in non-anthropology departments is
obvious, it must also be recognised that his response, and the study, did little
to challenge the notion that applied anthropologists working in non-specialist
institutions are not considered to be part of the disciplinary community.
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