The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical scoping and exploration of sensory ethnography. It combines a literature survey with some relevant fieldwork reflections. It aims to both recognize and appreciate the rise of sensory ethnography as a creative turn. In short, the essay provides a series of provocations and challenges around doing different descriptive ethnography. It is organized into three sections. The first section frames and unpacks sensory ethnography. The second section articulates sensory ethnography in action by outlining the author ’ s autoethnographic journey in both martial arts and bouncing. The final concluding section, considers the future of sensory ethnography as a radicalizing and imaginative lens within organizational ethnography and related fields.
{"title":"Sensory ethnography: a creative turn","authors":"David Calvey","doi":"10.1108/joe-10-2021-086","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/joe-10-2021-086","url":null,"abstract":"The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical scoping and exploration of sensory ethnography. It combines a literature survey with some relevant fieldwork reflections. It aims to both recognize and appreciate the rise of sensory ethnography as a creative turn. In short, the essay provides a series of provocations and challenges around doing different descriptive ethnography. It is organized into three sections. The first section frames and unpacks sensory ethnography. The second section articulates sensory ethnography in action by outlining the author ’ s autoethnographic journey in both martial arts and bouncing. The final concluding section, considers the future of sensory ethnography as a radicalizing and imaginative lens within organizational ethnography and related fields.","PeriodicalId":44924,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Organizational Ethnography","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44561516","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Particularly, Down to Earth (2018), to which his new book is described as “sequel” [4], marks and links this dual crisis of COVID-19 and the global climate: “After the harrowing experience of the pandemic and the lockdowns, both states and individuals have been searching for ways to exit the crisis, hoping to return as soon as possible to ‘the world as it was before the pandemic’” [5]. In the hope of learning skills to process and cope with this all inclusive climactic and ecological lockdown, this dress rehearsal for the climate mutation, the challenge to re-understand where we stand as inhabitants of this strange place called Earth, also offers new opportunities to ethnographers. While the discovery of organizations as “fields” has drawn ethnographers inside the walls of plants and boardrooms, the present ecological drama forces them back into their “natural” habitat to take up what has been their strength from the start, fieldwork, into what Tsing calls “third nature”, the possibilities to live life on the planet after capitalist transformation of the environment in “second nature” (Tsing, 2015, p. viii). [...]we know the San cosmology cannot be uprooted and incorporated into our ways of living and being.
特别是,他的新书《脚踏实地》(2018)被称为“续集”b[5],它标志着COVID-19和全球气候的双重危机,并将其联系起来:“在经历了大流行和封锁的痛苦经历之后,国家和个人都在寻找摆脱危机的方法,希望尽快回到‘大流行前的世界’”b[5]。希望能学习处理和应对这一切气候和生态封锁的技能,这是气候突变的彩排,重新理解我们作为这个叫做地球的奇怪地方的居民所处的位置的挑战,也为人种学家提供了新的机会。虽然组织作为“领域”的发现吸引了民族志学家进入植物和会议室的墙壁,但目前的生态戏剧迫使他们回到他们的“自然”栖息地,将他们从一开始就拥有的力量,田野调查,纳入Tsing所谓的“第三自然”,即在“第二自然”中对环境进行资本主义改造后在地球上生活的可能性(Tsing, 2015, p. viii)。我们知道桑人的宇宙观不能被连根拔起并融入我们的生活和存在方式。
{"title":"Organizational ethnography after lockdown: “walking with the trouble”","authors":"F. Kamsteeg, Layla Durrani, H. Wels","doi":"10.1108/joe-10-2021-087","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/joe-10-2021-087","url":null,"abstract":"Particularly, Down to Earth (2018), to which his new book is described as “sequel” [4], marks and links this dual crisis of COVID-19 and the global climate: “After the harrowing experience of the pandemic and the lockdowns, both states and individuals have been searching for ways to exit the crisis, hoping to return as soon as possible to ‘the world as it was before the pandemic’” [5]. In the hope of learning skills to process and cope with this all inclusive climactic and ecological lockdown, this dress rehearsal for the climate mutation, the challenge to re-understand where we stand as inhabitants of this strange place called Earth, also offers new opportunities to ethnographers. While the discovery of organizations as “fields” has drawn ethnographers inside the walls of plants and boardrooms, the present ecological drama forces them back into their “natural” habitat to take up what has been their strength from the start, fieldwork, into what Tsing calls “third nature”, the possibilities to live life on the planet after capitalist transformation of the environment in “second nature” (Tsing, 2015, p. viii). [...]we know the San cosmology cannot be uprooted and incorporated into our ways of living and being.","PeriodicalId":44924,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Organizational Ethnography","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42749475","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-02DOI: 10.1108/joe-02-2021-0008
Inès Saudelli, Sofie De Kimpe, J. Christiaens
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how suspicion that leads to a police stop is developed by police officers in Belgium, and the way in which police department culture influences the creation of suspicion.Design/methodology/approachThe data on which this article is based are the result of an ethnographic study within two local Belgian police forces. In total, the researcher has observed for a total amount of 750 h the day-to-day practices of police officers in different police services. Next to that, 37 in-depth interviews were taken from police officers employed in the same services that participated in the observations.FindingsWhile the creation of suspicion in a police officer's mind is a complex process that is influenced by various factors such as the individual characteristics of the police officer and the applicable legislation, the impact of police department culture is equally important and can be responsible for maintaining discriminatory and stereotypical mindsets.Originality/valueThe originality of this paper lies in the fact that it offers insight into the Belgian police stop practice, a topic about which not much is known on an international level. In addition, it also focuses on the role of departmental cultures in the actions of police officers.
{"title":"Police stops, suspicion and the influence of police department cultures: a look into the Belgian context","authors":"Inès Saudelli, Sofie De Kimpe, J. Christiaens","doi":"10.1108/joe-02-2021-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/joe-02-2021-0008","url":null,"abstract":"PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how suspicion that leads to a police stop is developed by police officers in Belgium, and the way in which police department culture influences the creation of suspicion.Design/methodology/approachThe data on which this article is based are the result of an ethnographic study within two local Belgian police forces. In total, the researcher has observed for a total amount of 750 h the day-to-day practices of police officers in different police services. Next to that, 37 in-depth interviews were taken from police officers employed in the same services that participated in the observations.FindingsWhile the creation of suspicion in a police officer's mind is a complex process that is influenced by various factors such as the individual characteristics of the police officer and the applicable legislation, the impact of police department culture is equally important and can be responsible for maintaining discriminatory and stereotypical mindsets.Originality/valueThe originality of this paper lies in the fact that it offers insight into the Belgian police stop practice, a topic about which not much is known on an international level. In addition, it also focuses on the role of departmental cultures in the actions of police officers.","PeriodicalId":44924,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Organizational Ethnography","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45368554","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-22DOI: 10.1108/joe-03-2021-0012
Norma López, D. Morgan
PurposeThe purpose of this duoethnography was to share our narratives as a left-behind early career faculty (ECF) and graduate student with minoritized identities and reflect on academic socialization processes. Specifically, when many scholars are raising alarms about the retention and success of faculty with minoritized identities, it is crucial to recognize the dimensions of socialization within the organizational context of academia.Design/methodology/approachThe authors sought an approach that would facilitate the interrogation of the overlap and divergence of the authors’ perspectives. Duoethnography research design was chosen for its focus on self-reflection as well as on the importance of the expression and consideration of those diverging perspectives. The goal was collaboration to generate a discussion that deepens a complex understanding of socialization in and professional commitment to academia.FindingsThe central insight that surfaced from the analysis of our duoethnography data is the enhanced understanding of the “nameless-faceless” dimension of academic socialization. Endeavoring to understand why faculty leave and how those who are left behind make sense of that departure led the authors to examine the unknown entities the authors are responsible to and for so they may better understand their commitment to academia.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors’ findings reveal that the nameless–faceless element is just a generalized behavior adopted in the interest of restricted and individual advantage. Diversity and equity practices are touted as a priority, but frequently, institutions act in ways that establish their own self-interests. The authors argue that we are all the nameless–faceless when they participate in academic norms that work to uphold and perpetuate traditional practices in academia.Practical implicationsThe authors’ findings point to intentional mentoring and integration of responsibility in faculty roles as potential recruitment and retention tools.Originality/valueThe authors extend the importance of collaboration and mentorship in retaining graduate students and EFC to the concept of intertwined professional commitment, or the theory that it is not simply the outcomes that are influenced by the support and cooperation between faculty with minoritized identities but that our professional commitment to academia is strengthened by that collaboration and witnessing each other's purpose and motivation to remain in academia.
{"title":"Confronting the nameless-faceless: a duoethnography of navigating turnover and early career socialization","authors":"Norma López, D. Morgan","doi":"10.1108/joe-03-2021-0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/joe-03-2021-0012","url":null,"abstract":"PurposeThe purpose of this duoethnography was to share our narratives as a left-behind early career faculty (ECF) and graduate student with minoritized identities and reflect on academic socialization processes. Specifically, when many scholars are raising alarms about the retention and success of faculty with minoritized identities, it is crucial to recognize the dimensions of socialization within the organizational context of academia.Design/methodology/approachThe authors sought an approach that would facilitate the interrogation of the overlap and divergence of the authors’ perspectives. Duoethnography research design was chosen for its focus on self-reflection as well as on the importance of the expression and consideration of those diverging perspectives. The goal was collaboration to generate a discussion that deepens a complex understanding of socialization in and professional commitment to academia.FindingsThe central insight that surfaced from the analysis of our duoethnography data is the enhanced understanding of the “nameless-faceless” dimension of academic socialization. Endeavoring to understand why faculty leave and how those who are left behind make sense of that departure led the authors to examine the unknown entities the authors are responsible to and for so they may better understand their commitment to academia.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors’ findings reveal that the nameless–faceless element is just a generalized behavior adopted in the interest of restricted and individual advantage. Diversity and equity practices are touted as a priority, but frequently, institutions act in ways that establish their own self-interests. The authors argue that we are all the nameless–faceless when they participate in academic norms that work to uphold and perpetuate traditional practices in academia.Practical implicationsThe authors’ findings point to intentional mentoring and integration of responsibility in faculty roles as potential recruitment and retention tools.Originality/valueThe authors extend the importance of collaboration and mentorship in retaining graduate students and EFC to the concept of intertwined professional commitment, or the theory that it is not simply the outcomes that are influenced by the support and cooperation between faculty with minoritized identities but that our professional commitment to academia is strengthened by that collaboration and witnessing each other's purpose and motivation to remain in academia.","PeriodicalId":44924,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Organizational Ethnography","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41306566","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-18DOI: 10.1108/joe-02-2021-0009
J. Yim, Peregrine Schwartz-Shea
PurposeThe purpose of this article is to persuade ethnographers to consider using composites for studies in which protecting participants from identification is especially important. It situates the argument in the context of the transparency and data sharing movements' uneven influence across disciplines.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews problems in maintaining confidentiality of research participants using pseudonyms and masking. It analyzes existing literature on composites, conditions of composite use and identifies composite actors as a form useful to place-based ethnography. Methodological aspects of composite actor construction are discussed along with potential opportunities composites offer.FindingsConstruction of composite actors is best accomplished by aggregating thematically during deskwork. Composites provide enhanced confidentiality by creating plausible doubt in the reader's mind, in part, through the presentation of aggregate rather than individual-level data.Originality/valueThis discussion advances the methodology of constructing composites, particularly composite actors, providing guidance to increase trustworthiness of ethnographic narratives that employ composites.
目的本文的目的是说服民族志学家考虑使用复合材料进行研究,在这些研究中,保护参与者免受身份识别尤为重要。它将这一论点置于透明度和数据共享运动在不同学科之间影响不均衡的背景下。设计/方法论/方法该论文回顾了使用假名和口罩对研究参与者保密的问题。它分析了现有的关于复合物、复合物使用条件的文献,并将复合物行动者确定为一种对基于地点的民族志有用的形式。讨论了复合演员构建的方法论方面以及复合演员提供的潜在机会。FindingsConstruction of composite actors最好通过在办公桌上按主题聚合来完成。复合材料通过在读者心中制造合理的怀疑,在一定程度上通过呈现总体而非个人层面的数据,增强了保密性。独创性/价值这一讨论推进了构建复合物的方法,特别是复合物参与者,为提高使用复合物的民族志叙事的可信度提供了指导。
{"title":"Composite actors as participant protection: methodological opportunities for ethnographers","authors":"J. Yim, Peregrine Schwartz-Shea","doi":"10.1108/joe-02-2021-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/joe-02-2021-0009","url":null,"abstract":"PurposeThe purpose of this article is to persuade ethnographers to consider using composites for studies in which protecting participants from identification is especially important. It situates the argument in the context of the transparency and data sharing movements' uneven influence across disciplines.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews problems in maintaining confidentiality of research participants using pseudonyms and masking. It analyzes existing literature on composites, conditions of composite use and identifies composite actors as a form useful to place-based ethnography. Methodological aspects of composite actor construction are discussed along with potential opportunities composites offer.FindingsConstruction of composite actors is best accomplished by aggregating thematically during deskwork. Composites provide enhanced confidentiality by creating plausible doubt in the reader's mind, in part, through the presentation of aggregate rather than individual-level data.Originality/valueThis discussion advances the methodology of constructing composites, particularly composite actors, providing guidance to increase trustworthiness of ethnographic narratives that employ composites.","PeriodicalId":44924,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Organizational Ethnography","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49095327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-22DOI: 10.1108/joe-03-2021-0014
I. Ryan
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to reflexively reconsider the effects of the author’s pre-understandings, both academic and non-academic, on the subject matter and the research setting. The unforeseen implications of this disjuncture on our research practice and the expected deliverables are discussed.Design/methodology/approachThe paper engages in a critical, self-reflexive dialogue of a journey through a stimulating yet, uncomfortable piece of feminist, organizational ethnographic research drawing on the insights from the author's research diary.FindingsThe account presented in this paper describes the problematic nature of undertaking a collaborative, reciprocal research project in the distinctive and foreign cultural landscape of the military. The author shows the importance of delving into matters of positionality and preparedness for what might emerge, as a form of closure.Practical implicationsThe paper provides insights into the importance of sponsors to access “the field” and our obligation as researchers to produce written deliverables.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the emerging literature on the significance of reflexivity in feminist inspired organizational ethnographies in highly gendered settings such as the military.
{"title":"Reflections of a feminist organizational ethnographer: considering the subject matter and the research setting","authors":"I. Ryan","doi":"10.1108/joe-03-2021-0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/joe-03-2021-0014","url":null,"abstract":"PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to reflexively reconsider the effects of the author’s pre-understandings, both academic and non-academic, on the subject matter and the research setting. The unforeseen implications of this disjuncture on our research practice and the expected deliverables are discussed.Design/methodology/approachThe paper engages in a critical, self-reflexive dialogue of a journey through a stimulating yet, uncomfortable piece of feminist, organizational ethnographic research drawing on the insights from the author's research diary.FindingsThe account presented in this paper describes the problematic nature of undertaking a collaborative, reciprocal research project in the distinctive and foreign cultural landscape of the military. The author shows the importance of delving into matters of positionality and preparedness for what might emerge, as a form of closure.Practical implicationsThe paper provides insights into the importance of sponsors to access “the field” and our obligation as researchers to produce written deliverables.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the emerging literature on the significance of reflexivity in feminist inspired organizational ethnographies in highly gendered settings such as the military.","PeriodicalId":44924,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Organizational Ethnography","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42903917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-08DOI: 10.1108/joe-01-2021-0007
A. Dziuba, J. Tienari, L. Välikangas
PurposeThe three authors of this paper are intrigued by ideas and how they are created. The purpose of this paper is to explore idea creation and work by means of remote collaborative autoethnography.Design/methodology/approachDuring the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, the authors sent texts to each other, followed up on each other's thoughts and discussed them in online meetings. They shared, analyzed and eventually theorized their lived experiences in order to understand creating ideas as social and cultural experience.FindingsThe authors develop the notions of “shelter” and “crutch” to make sense of the complexity of creating ideas together; theorize how emotions and identities are entangled in idea work; and discuss how time, space and power relations condition it.Originality/valueThe authors contribute to understanding idea work in a remote collaborative autoethnography by highlighting its emotional, identity-related and power-laden nature.
{"title":"Idea work online: shelters and crutches in remote collaborative autoethnography","authors":"A. Dziuba, J. Tienari, L. Välikangas","doi":"10.1108/joe-01-2021-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/joe-01-2021-0007","url":null,"abstract":"PurposeThe three authors of this paper are intrigued by ideas and how they are created. The purpose of this paper is to explore idea creation and work by means of remote collaborative autoethnography.Design/methodology/approachDuring the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, the authors sent texts to each other, followed up on each other's thoughts and discussed them in online meetings. They shared, analyzed and eventually theorized their lived experiences in order to understand creating ideas as social and cultural experience.FindingsThe authors develop the notions of “shelter” and “crutch” to make sense of the complexity of creating ideas together; theorize how emotions and identities are entangled in idea work; and discuss how time, space and power relations condition it.Originality/valueThe authors contribute to understanding idea work in a remote collaborative autoethnography by highlighting its emotional, identity-related and power-laden nature.","PeriodicalId":44924,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Organizational Ethnography","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49004625","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-07DOI: 10.1108/joe-06-2021-0034
T. G. Jensen, Rebecka Söderberg
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore problematisations of urban diversity in urban and integration policies in Denmark and Sweden; the paper aims to show how such policies express social imaginaries about the self and the other underlying assumptions of sameness that legitimise diverging ways of managing urban diversity and (re)organising the city.Design/methodology/approachInspired by anthropology of policy and post-structural approaches to policy analysis, the authors approach urban and integration policies as cultural texts that are central to the organisation of cities and societies. With a comparative approach, the authors explore how visions of diversity take shape and develop over time in Swedish and Danish policies on urban development and integration.FindingsSwedish policy constructs productiveness as crucial to the imagined national sameness, whereas Danish policy constructs cultural sameness as fundamental to the national self-image. By constructing the figure of “the unproductive”/“the non-Western” as the other, diverging from an imagined sameness, policies for organising the city through removing and “improving” urban diverse others are legitimised.Originality/valueThe authors add to previous research by focussing on the construction of the self as crucial in processes of othering and by highlighting how both nationalistic and colour-blind policy discourses construct myths of national sameness, which legitimise the governing of urban diversity. The authors highlight and de-naturalise assumptions and categorisations by showing how problem representations differ over time and between two neighbouring countries.
{"title":"Governing urban diversity through myths of national sameness – a comparative analysis of Denmark and Sweden","authors":"T. G. Jensen, Rebecka Söderberg","doi":"10.1108/joe-06-2021-0034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/joe-06-2021-0034","url":null,"abstract":"PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore problematisations of urban diversity in urban and integration policies in Denmark and Sweden; the paper aims to show how such policies express social imaginaries about the self and the other underlying assumptions of sameness that legitimise diverging ways of managing urban diversity and (re)organising the city.Design/methodology/approachInspired by anthropology of policy and post-structural approaches to policy analysis, the authors approach urban and integration policies as cultural texts that are central to the organisation of cities and societies. With a comparative approach, the authors explore how visions of diversity take shape and develop over time in Swedish and Danish policies on urban development and integration.FindingsSwedish policy constructs productiveness as crucial to the imagined national sameness, whereas Danish policy constructs cultural sameness as fundamental to the national self-image. By constructing the figure of “the unproductive”/“the non-Western” as the other, diverging from an imagined sameness, policies for organising the city through removing and “improving” urban diverse others are legitimised.Originality/valueThe authors add to previous research by focussing on the construction of the self as crucial in processes of othering and by highlighting how both nationalistic and colour-blind policy discourses construct myths of national sameness, which legitimise the governing of urban diversity. The authors highlight and de-naturalise assumptions and categorisations by showing how problem representations differ over time and between two neighbouring countries.","PeriodicalId":44924,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Organizational Ethnography","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47465239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}