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Researching underwater: a submerged study
This chapter explores the unknown territory of a lost project: an ethnography of a public swimming pool. The discussion is contextualised within my broader sociological theory of ‘nothing’, as a category of unmarked, negative social phenomena, including no-things, no-bodies, no-wheres, non-events and non-identities. These meaningful symbolic objects are constituted through social interaction, which can take two forms: acts of commission and acts of omission. I tell the story of how this project did not happen, through the things I did not do or that did not materialise, and how I consequently did not become a certain type of researcher. I identify three types of negative phenomena that I did not observe and document – invisible figures, silent voices and empty vessels – and, consequently, the knowledge I did not acquire. However, nothing is also productive, generating new symbolic objects as substitutes, alternatives and replacements: the somethings, somebodies and somewheres that are done or made instead. Thus finally, I reflect on how not doing this project led me to pursue others, cultivating a different research identity that would not otherwise have existed.
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Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Publisher
EmeraldPublisher URL
Volume
17Page range
79-94Pages
192.0Book title
The lost ethnographies: methodological insights from projects that never werePlace of publication
LondonISBN
9781787147744Series
Studies in Qualitative MethodologyDepartment affiliated with
- Sociology and Criminology Publications
Full text available
- No
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Editors
Robin James Smith, Sara DelamontLegacy Posted Date
2018-09-14First Open Access (FOA) Date
2019-01-25First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2018-09-14Usage metrics
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