Contributions from European Symbolic Interactionists Reflections on Methods

‘YOU ARE NOT FROM AROUND

HERE, ARE YOU’: GETTING

OTHERED IN PARTICIPANT

OBSERVATION

$

Danielle Chevalier

ABSTRACT

The present paper narrates the methodological and analytical experience

of ethnographic fieldwork conducted on a neighbourhood shopping-

square in the suburb of a provincial Dutch town. In the multi-ethnic and

male-dominated space of this research site, I am firmly rendered as The

Other. I reflect on how a group of male adolescents that reside on the

square hone in on my quality as a female and I discuss two of my experi-

ences with verbal and physical sexual harassment. Building on the dis-

course on auto-ethnography, I describe how embodied experiences and

the analysis of these experiences eventually lead to theoretical insights

pivotal to my research. My personal struggle on the square sensitizes me

Contributions from European Symbolic Interactionists: Reflections on Methods
Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 44, 1
17
Copyrightr2015 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
ISSN: 0163-2396/doi:10.1108/S0163-
1

$Paper presented at the 2012 Annual Conference of The European Society for the

Study of Symbolic Interaction.