Programme full

Thursday 16 April 2016 15:30 - 17:00
PAPER SESSION 6 / PECHA KUCHA SESSIONS
Europe and ‘the end of cheap food’, these effects are being exacerbated. However, not enough is known about how
food practices are negotiated in low-income families, children’s and young people’s perspectives of food poverty and
how it affects their lives, or how food poverty manifests and is addressed in different places.
This talk describes the methodology and some early insights from a cross-national, mixed-methods research project
which sets out to answer such questions. The study adopts an embedded case study design. Providing for ‘a contrast
of contexts’ in relation to conditions of austerity, it focuses on Portugal, where poor families with children have been
most affected by economic retrenchment, the UK, which is experiencing substantial cuts in benefits to poor families,
and Norway which, in comparison with most societies, is highly egalitarian and has not been subject to austerity
measures.
Some early findings from the policy and literature review are given, providing an indication of the ways in which
household food insecurity is discursively framed, measured and addressed in each country. The presentation of early
findings from the quantitative research includes discussion of the opportunities and limitations of conducting
secondary analysis on the topic using existing national and European data.
Methodological Innovations
W324, HAMISH WOOD BUILDING
ETHNOGRAPHIC ENCOUNTERS IN TRANSITION: STUDYING SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS IN TURKEY
This panel offers a discussion on the methodological experiences and theoretical insights of studying social
institutions ethnographically at a time of flux in Turkey, under the single party government of the “neo-Islamist” Justice
and Development Party. The transformation in Turkey and the consequent social polarizations trigger the sociological
imagination and pose diverse methodological challenges for the ethnographer. Against this background, it would be
timely to start a discussion on common issues, such as negotiating the shifting positionality of the researcher, or
gaining and maintaining trust and access to the field site. We address three overlapping themes: power relationships
in the field, the role of the researcher and informants, and ethical dilemmas arising in particular settings. How do
power relationships operate at all levels of the ethnographic research? How are concepts of class, gender, and
identity negotiated by both the researcher and informants? How do these methodological challenges play out in
different social institutions within the context of transformation in Turkey? We bring together five examples of
ethnographic research-- studying women’s religious practices, changing gender roles in the family, journalistic
cultures, legal struggles of minorities, and competing state museums in Turkey. Particular ethnographic encounters
will be discussed through the prism of theoretical debates on power, agency, and transformation, with the aim of
contributing to common methodological debates on ethnographies of societies in transition.
Ethnography of the State: Researching State Museums in Turkey
Karahasan, C.N.
(University of Edinburgh)
This paper discusses power-knowledge relationships in studying state institutions ethnographically in Turkey at a time
of unrest, when the Kemalist/secularist state power has been reversed by the single party government of the “neo-
Islamist” Justice and Development Party in the last twelve years. The paper is based on my ethnographic fieldwork
(August 2012- June 2013) in two state museums affiliated with competing state institutions in Turkey; one linked to the
Turkish Armed Forces -the “guardian” of secularism, and the other to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism -an arm of
the government. Although both are state museums, they require diverse strategies for conducting ethnographic
research due to the growing political polarization and reversal of power relationships between Kemalists and Islamists
within the state. I focus on how the changing power dynamics in the state relates to ethnographic encounters in
different state museums that are endowed with contending sources of power. These encounters, common to all
ethnographic studies (negotiating/maintaining access, conducting interviews, observation, and access to qualitative
data sources), are based on the relationship between changing legal structures (e.g. bureaucracy, regulations,
inter/intra-institutional hierarchies), shifting positionality of the researcher (e.g. the insider-outsider role of the
researcher), and ethical dilemmas (e.g. ensuring anonymity of identifiable informants/civil servants) in the particular
state institutions. The paper argues that informants in both museums maintain their knowledge-power over the
researcher through bureaucracy for withholding/yielding knowledge, while the researcher strives to negotiate her
insider-outsider role beyond the fissure between Islamism and Kemalism in distinct ways.
207 BSA Annual Conference 2015
Glasgow Caledonian University