March 27, 2020 / By mobanmarket
Ethnographers believe they need to do more fieldwork in Brussels.An ethnographic perspective
European studies draw on all sorts of disciplines, from political science and economics to law and history. Anthropology also has a contribution to make, but something is preventing EU ethnographic studies from having a broader impact.
Ethnographers live alongside groups of people, watching, listening and asking questions, with the aim of revealing what people do and how they view their activities. It is a discipline that has its roots in the study of ‘exotic’ cultures, but there is also a long tradition of organisational ethnography, investigating everything from factory floors to hi-tech corporations and government departments.
EU institutions such as the European Commission and the European Parliament have also received the attention of ethnographers, although the studies are not numerous. There has been work on particular communities in Brussels, such as translators and national delegations, as well as inside other pan-European organisations, such as the European Space Agency.
“I see my ethnographic studies of the EU and its institutions as complementary to European studies,” says Cris Shore, professor of social anthropology at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and author of one of the most significant studies of life inside the Commission. “Ethnography provides insight into the social and cultural aspects of life in Europe and reveals areas of everyday behaviour that are often invisible to, or overlooked by, the more conventional approaches in European studies.”
Dealing with real people in their social and cultural context has distinct advantages. “It’s data that can ‘talk back’ and challenge the researcher,” Shore says, “and data that may have its own views about the world and the research questions being asked.”
The value of an ethnographic approach is also apparent from within European studies. “You get a much richer sense of how an institution works and how the people within it act on a day-to-day basis,” says Tim Bale, professor of politics at the Sussex European Institute, part of the University of Sussex.
Ethnography can also bring out hidden factors. “Sometimes it takes an anthropologist to reveal the practices that are so taken for granted that no one in the institution regards them as worth commenting on, even though – to an outsider – they are fascinating and very important,” Bale says.
While some major projects are solely ethnographic, it is common to combine ethnography with other approaches. For example, a study of Dutch eurocrats conducted by Utrecht University and published in 2007 combined participant observation with a survey and interviews. “That way we knew how many people were going to Brussels and how much of their time went into going there, preparing meetings, lobbying and so on,” explains Karin Geuijen, an anthropologist working at Utrecht’s School of Governance. “If you do only the ethnographic work you never know that.”
The aim of the study was to investigate what Dutch representatives were actually doing in Brussels and address issues such as accountability. “What we found, for example, was that when they were in these Brussels committee meetings and working parties, the identity of being a national representative was reinforced by the way the meetings were held. That was the kind of thing we wanted to see.”
While appreciated in some quarters, most people involved feel that ethnographic studies have not had a great impact on European studies. “The contribution is not yet as significant as it ought to be and as it could be,” says Zdzislaw Mach, an anthropologist by training who directs the Institute of European Studies at Jagiellonian University, Kraków. “This kind of research is not sufficiently present in European studies curricula, or in reflection among European studies people on what needs to be taught.”
Shore sees no reason why the different approaches should not go hand in hand. “However, I have often encountered hostility within the disciplines that dominate EU studies. Their accusation is that ethnography lacks rigour, is based on ‘hearsay’ and relies on unreliable ‘anecdotal evidence’.”
It is a charge that is easily rebutted. “Human beings are not rats in a laboratory,” he says. “Ethnography aims to provide insight into issues of meaning and behaviour that cannot be grasped through conventional scientific approaches.”
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For Bale, the potential contribution of ethnography is clear. “An understanding of all the European institutions could be helped by ethnography, simply because it takes us deeper into what the people in them think of themselves and about what they do. It also takes us into that informal, softer side of the institutions, which is extremely hard to get at with other methods but which is clearly very important in understanding what they do.”
Interesting areas for study would include lobbying or relationships within party groups in the Parliament. Bale’s own current interest is in the recently formed European Conservatives and Reformists group, which he is studying through interviews and other traditional methods. “To be in there, at the beginning of a group’s life, would be particularly interesting,” he says. “The down-side is that it is hugely expensive in terms of time and resources, and therefore quite difficult to do.”
Shore also sees scope for further work to open up the black box of Brussels decision-making. “The rules of the game of Brussels policymaking are not all codified in law,” he says. “Many operate through informal processes that rely on cultural competence and symbolic capital, including mastering particular styles and habits of speech, dress, and bodily comportment. Ethnography is perfect for understanding this wider social field in which power and decision-making operate.”
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