Loosemore, M; Powell, A; Blaxland, M; Galea, N; Dainty, A and Chappell, L (2015) Rapid ethnography in construction gender research. In: Raiden, A and Aboagye-Nimo, E (eds.) Proceedings of 31st Annual ARCOM Conference, 7-9 September 2015, Lincoln, UK.
Abstract
In advancing the intellectual debate in gender equity and diversity in the construction industry, feminist institutionalism is being used as a new lens to understand the failure of formal policies to shift the intransigent gender imbalance. Feminist institutionalism allows new insights into how hidden informal organisational rules, practices and narratives operate in conjunction with formal rules in achieving gender diversity and equity. However, the adoption of feminist institutionalism as a conceptual framework raises new methodological questions. While formal rules are created, communicated and enforced through official and highly visible channels, informal rules, norms and procedures are created, communicated, and enforced outside officially sanctioned channels and are often 'hidden' from view. The power of ethnographic methods to reveal such 'under-the-surface' institutions is well established in the social and political sciences but not in construction. This paper makes a methodological contribution in response to the practical constraints of doing ethnography in the construction industry, by describing the merits of rapid ethnography within the context of feminist institutionalism. It concludes that while rapid ethnography has its limitations, it has significant potential as an unexplored methodology to tackle the persistent problem of gender equality in the construction industry and other social issues in construction management research.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | gender; policy; equity; diversity; feminist institutionalism; ethnography |
| Index terms: | construction industry, gender equality, gender equity, conceptual framework, ethnography, management research, methodology, norms, narrative, science, feminist institutionalism |
| Subjects: | theoretical framing, qualitative and interpretive research, research design and methodology, social justice, specialized education, industry analysis, research methods, sociology |
| Topics: | Education, Ethics, Research Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 CTA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here