Studying Everyday Practice(s) in the SEM

Author(s) : Laura Affolter

Source : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61512-3_2

Abstract:

“This chapter explores what it means to study a bureaucracy at work. It outlines my methodological approach for analysing everyday practices in the SEM [Swiss State Secretariat for Migration], the challenges I encountered during fieldwork as well as the methodological limits of this study. Building on Reckwitz’s (European Journal of Social Theory 5: 243–263, 2002) definition of practice, I argue that methodological triangulation and particularly participant observation—mostly in the form of following administrative caseworkers around in their daily work—are crucial for analysing both the discursive and non-discursive aspects of practices. Yet, at the same time, following Hitchings (Area 44: 61–67, 2012), I challenge the claim made by some authors that discursive methods are methodologically unfitting for researching practices from a practice theoretical perspective. Rather, I argue that people’s retrospective descriptions of past events, their explicit knowledge of rules and norms and particularly their capacity to reflect on why they do what they do provide us with valuable insights into everyday practice.”

Keywords: Asylum law, Fieldwork, Institutional ethnography, Methodological triangulation, Participant observation, Practice theory