How does one tag someone with lots of money in this post?
I phrase this in jest, but mean it in all seriousness—the rhetoric at the moment is ‘be more ambitious’ because we are less cash constrained than before, but maybe we should add to this ‘be more ambitious, but doubly as self-critical as before’.
I don’t think the research question is the hard part, compared to finding the people to do it. If you’re interested in this I’d be happy to see a proposal on it, including who you think is good to research stuff here! :)
Interesting, I think it’s the other way round; there are tonnes of companies and academic groups who do action-oriented evaluation work which can include (and I reckon in some cases exclusively be) ethnography. But in my experience the hard part is always “what can feasibly be researched?” and “who will listen and learn from the findings?” In the case of EA community this would translate to something like the following, which are ranked in order of hardest to simpler...:
what exactly is the EA community? or what is a representative cross-section / group for exploration?
who actually wants to be surveilled and critiqued; to have their assumptions and blindspots surfaced in a way that may cast aspersions on their actions and what they advocate for? especially if these are ‘central nodes’ or public(ish) figures
how can the person(s) doing ethnography be given sufficient power and access to do their work effectively?
what kind of psychological contracts need to be engendered so that the results of this research don’t fall on deaf ears? and how do we go about that?
what things do we want to learn from this? should it be theory-driven, or related to specific EA subject-matter (e.g. long-termism)? or should the ethnographer be given a wider remit to do this work?
I’d be happy to have a conversation about what this could look like—maybe slightly more useful than a paper because I suspect there are an unhelpful amount of potential misunderstanding potholes in this area, so easier to clarify by chatting through.
I think that EAs are, at least ostensibly, very open to being studied and critiqued. I think they could be an excellent population for academic ethnographers or simply very compliant client community for action-oriented evaluation.
Here’s a podcast I listened to years ago which has influenced how I think about groups and what to be sceptical about; most specifically what we choose not to talk about.
This is why I’m somewhat sceptical about how EA groups would respond to an offer of an ethnography; what do people find uncomfortable to talk about with a stranger observing them, let alone with each other?
How does one tag someone with lots of money in this post?
I phrase this in jest, but mean it in all seriousness—the rhetoric at the moment is ‘be more ambitious’ because we are less cash constrained than before, but maybe we should add to this ‘be more ambitious, but doubly as self-critical as before’.
If I give you money, can you make this happen?
Oh man, I would love to try, even if all I do is locate and pay someone else who can find an ethnographer.
Yeah I’d know how to go about making this happen, including figuring out what’s a decent research question for it, but not undertaking it myself.
I don’t think the research question is the hard part, compared to finding the people to do it. If you’re interested in this I’d be happy to see a proposal on it, including who you think is good to research stuff here! :)
Interesting, I think it’s the other way round; there are tonnes of companies and academic groups who do action-oriented evaluation work which can include (and I reckon in some cases exclusively be) ethnography. But in my experience the hard part is always “what can feasibly be researched?” and “who will listen and learn from the findings?” In the case of EA community this would translate to something like the following, which are ranked in order of hardest to simpler...:
what exactly is the EA community? or what is a representative cross-section / group for exploration?
who actually wants to be surveilled and critiqued; to have their assumptions and blindspots surfaced in a way that may cast aspersions on their actions and what they advocate for? especially if these are ‘central nodes’ or public(ish) figures
how can the person(s) doing ethnography be given sufficient power and access to do their work effectively?
what kind of psychological contracts need to be engendered so that the results of this research don’t fall on deaf ears? and how do we go about that?
what things do we want to learn from this? should it be theory-driven, or related to specific EA subject-matter (e.g. long-termism)? or should the ethnographer be given a wider remit to do this work?
I’d be happy to have a conversation about what this could look like—maybe slightly more useful than a paper because I suspect there are an unhelpful amount of potential misunderstanding potholes in this area, so easier to clarify by chatting through.
I think that EAs are, at least ostensibly, very open to being studied and critiqued. I think they could be an excellent population for academic ethnographers or simply very compliant client community for action-oriented evaluation.
Here’s a podcast I listened to years ago which has influenced how I think about groups and what to be sceptical about; most specifically what we choose not to talk about.
This is why I’m somewhat sceptical about how EA groups would respond to an offer of an ethnography; what do people find uncomfortable to talk about with a stranger observing them, let alone with each other?
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0yKnibTpN8XaszrjP2lDha?si=2NLagAXkScmizZO8jMGBHQ&utm_source=copy-link