Doing field research in state-mandated historical memory institutions : institutional access and researcher? liminality / Sokol Lleshi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lleshi, Sokol, author.

Series:

SAGE Research Methods. Cases.

SAGE Research Methods. Cases

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Public institutions.

Collective memory.

Participant observation.

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Place of Publication:

London : SAGE Publications Ltd, 2019.

Summary:

During 20112014, I conducted iterative rounds of field research at state-mandated Historical Memory Institutes that emerged in postsocialist East-Central Europe. The multi-sited fieldwork was focused at the Romanian Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and Memory of the Romanian Exile (IICCMER), at the Czech Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes (??STR), and at the Albanian Institute for the Study of Communist Crimes and Aftereffects (ISKK). The objective of the research was to understand how the emergence of these particular institutions affected processes of addressing the past. This case study problematizes the process of institutional access and immersion in the field as central to the fieldwork experience in allegedly bureaucratic institutions established in politicized settings. The dynamic process of public contestation toward these Institutes, doings and undoings of institutional structures, and hierarchies provides the social context of the intricacy of institutional access. I reflect on the quandaries, dilemmas, strategies, and limitations of field research within various dynamic state institutions. Striving for ideal conditions of complete immersion in the field can be either illusory or counterproductive in a context of competing representations on the past and when the stakes are high. Ethnographic sensibility is an important component of fieldwork. Rather than taking sides, or remaining neutral to various respondents and informants, of opposing positions, the researcher needs to show ethnographic sensibility to each. Central issues that structure this case study focus on institutional access, field immersion, advantages of multi-sited ethnography, strategies of overcoming fieldwork limitations, ambiguity of Institut??s researchers/bureaucrats, and the reflexivity of the ethnographer. Ultimately, generating knowledge and understanding in political science through field research requires relishing and revealing apparent similarities and latent contradictions.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on XML content.

ISBN:

1-5264-6562-0

OCLC:

1084514931