Studying ‘closed’ workplaces: ‘Embedded-actualised’ ethnography and reflections on ‘embeddedness’ from the remote UK oilfields

Abstract

Energy-ethnographies of ‘closed’ workplaces detail practices for achieving robust, authentic research. However, few publications highlight -experientially- benefits of developing connections; learning specifics of environments, peoples and customs prior to beginning ethnography proper. Developing knowledge is (a) necessary for organisational locales, to achieve accurate, thorough and representative accounts of peoples, places, and cultures; and (b) grants the researcher ‘insider status’; enhancing depth, quality, authenticity and knowledge. Observations are deconstructed in the context of my past doctoral studies, where an ‘enhanced’ dual ‘embedded-actualised’ ethnography was used to examine linkages between oilmen, masculinities, and safety and risk practices onboard a remote UK North Sea offshore oil-gas drilling platform, with initial research conducted first in an ‘onshore’ site of labour. This ‘dual’ approach facilitated legitimacy, trust, rapport and acceptance, resulting in unique oilfield access, in-depth and novel findings uncommon of similar-topic research. A pathway for scholars to utilise methodological learnings vis-à-vis ‘embeddedness’ is presented.