(2009)in which they demonstrate how the incorporation of their own emo-
tions enriched their analysis in their research on respectively the position of
women in a Guyana mining settlement, on soccer hooligans and on the
practice of capital punishment. As they demonstrate: ‘emotions are linked
to social contexts and interdependent with cognitions’(2009, p. 58).
In part, the contestation over auto-ethnography appears to be on
whatthe term denominates and who gets to decide that (Charmaz, 2006,
p.399). In a 2006 issue ofThe Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Leon
Anderson posited the concept of ‘analytic auto-ethnography’. In this
approach, auto-ethnography is applied in a more traditional mode of quali-
tative research, by incorporating ‘aspects of auto-ethnography into analytic
ethnographic practice’ (Anderson, 2006a, p. 374). By those who propound
auto-ethnography ‘as an alternative to traditional, realist ethnography’, it
was considered an outrageous hijacking of the concept by that same realist
ethnography (Ellis & Bochner, 2006, p. 436). The takeoverthough not
the hostile intent is more or less acknowledged by Anderson, who
responds that he is ‘committed to pursuing theoretically informed, induc-
tively grounded realist ethnography’(2006b, p. 451). With the reference to
auto-ethnography, Anderson strives to accommodate and incorporate the
circumstance in which the researcher becomes a stakeholder in the social
world under scrutiny. As Anderson argues, such a circumstance calls for
‘heightened reflexivity and a greater visibility of the self in ethnographic
texts’(2006b, p. 453).
It is in concurrence with this perspective that I do present myself as a
main character in the following ethnographic narratives. My fieldwork
focused on physical space and the social interactions taking place in that
space by way of street interviews and participant observation. Initially, the
participatory part was calculated as the part where I physically set myself
in the space and participated simply by being present in the space.
Verdipleinhowever refused to let me recline in the comfort zone of a non-
committal observant. The auto-ethnographical experience has aided me in
making a better analysis of the interactions I unintentionally became part
of and helped me understand the power relations between the various
actors of my site. Moreover, the field interacted with me and challenged me
on facets of my identity I myself did not wish to prominently figure in my
self-representation. Here I draw the attention to one specific dynamic. In
the male-dominated setting of the ‘street corner boy society’ onVerdiplein,
the one singular aspect of my identity that kept being pulled into focus by
my field is the fact that I am a female.
‘You Are Not from Around Here, Are You.’ 7