The humanism of the other in sociolinguistic ethnography

Abstract

This article describes the social and ethical responsibility researchers experience in undertaking ethnographic research under conditions of neoliberalism. It acknowledges the hierarchical nature of working in large ethnographic teams in which a mixture of employment contracts and statuses exist. Drawing on relational ethics (Levinas 2003. Humanism of the Other. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.), and its attention to the humanizing potential of difference, the paper describes researchers’ propensity for relationality in the face of competitive neoliberalism. It presents a case study of a large research team and investigates the use of research vignettes to represent and relate in difference. Subjectivity is theorized not in terms of identity but rather through alterity and opacity arguing this direction opens up social and political alliances (Butler 2005. Giving an Account of Oneself. New York: Fordham University Press.). Specifically, the paper suggests the research vignette is a genre well suited to documenting the way humans live in difference, illustrating how the researcher yields to the face of the Other in field work encounters. As a form the research vignette is said to bridge the aesthetic and the scientific, demanding of its reader an engagement with a variety of interpretations. Further, the vignette is considered for its methodological potential in creating a dialogic relational space for research teams within the neoliberal university.