Methodology
This chapter presents the methodology of the study. There is a reflection on the double role of the researcher in the present study as both outsider and insider—not a spectator, but an engaged participant, sharing a Geertzian ‘web of significance’ with th
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Methodology
The present chapter presents the methodology of the present study. Section 4.1 introduces the approach, describing the methodological need for holism and advocating a departure from established approaches. This preamble is necessary and goes hand in hand with the modus operandi of the present study, which attempts to reduce the distances between different academic disciplines by developing an ethnographic spirit that is aware of both the etic and emic viewpoints and the positionality of the researcher. Such an approach is sympathetic to what Bourdieu (1989) referred to as ‘constructivist structuralism’ or ‘structuralist constructivism’, in which both text and context must be taken into consideration. It is also concomitant with ‘being ethnographic’ (Madden 2010), an approach which ‘represents a representation (Geertz 2000) by practising the key moments in the ethnographic endeavour’ (i.e. entering the field, gaining access to the participants, and reflecting on data). Next, Sect. 4.2 addresses and describes the design of the study, including the selection of participants and the data gathering and analysis. Section 4.3 reflects on specific terms (‘generation’, ‘culture’ and ‘tradition’) that might be problematic, especially when they are viewed as static essences.
© The Author(s) 2020 S. Marino, Intergenerational Ethnic Identity Construction and Transmission among Italian-Australians, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48145-2_4
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4.1 Taking an Ethnographic Approach When it comes to the study of culture and its methodology, there are a number of ways to obscure it. One is to imagine that culture is a self-contained ‘super-organic’ reality with forces and purposes of its own; that is, to reify it. Another is to claim that it consists in the brute pattern of behavioural events we observe in fact to occur in some identifiable community or other; that is, to reduce it. (Geertz 2000, p. 591)
The modus operandi of the present methodology is sympathetic to Geertz’s views and sensitive to a reflexive approach that incorporates diverse theories in order to obtain holism and reduce distances among the different academic social sciences (e.g. anthropology, sociology or linguistics) and their practices, theories and limitations. Such an approach guards against both a structural rigidity and an excess of relativism. The interpretation of the social world through monistic approaches (e.g. objectivism, subjectivism, structuralism or relativism) is an obstacle to doing research. The present study pursues a solid formation de l’esprit scientifique (Bachelard 1938), the development of an ethnographic spirit that is aware of both the etic and emic viewpoints and the positionality of the researcher. The rationale for these specific choices is the methodological need to merge empirical ethnographic data with reflexivity, considering both participants’ voices and narratives together with the ethnographic fieldwork. Hence, by adopting a Bourdieusian approach, the present study stays away from the obje
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