Guest editorial: Shining a light on the invisible work: the both- and many-sidedness of conducting (ethnographic) research

We are delighted to present this Special Issue (SI) on Accounting Ethnography. For many reasons, we are grateful to Lukas Goretzki and Thomas Ahrens, Editors-in-Chief at Qualitative Research in Accounting and Management (QRAM). Their passion and commitment made this happen and we thank them for their support and encouragement through the process. The journey toward this SI began in 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic had shaken our lives, each and every one of us touched in some way or another. A lot of qualitative research was either placed on hold or transferred online. Ethnographers, however, were compelled to abandon projects midstream as workplaces closed their doors and shuttered their windows. It was in this febrile climate that the seed of an idea about running an SI on accounting ethnography was planted. The idea began to take root as we were drafting the call for papers for the SI. Ferdinand Kunzl became a driving force behind promoting the SI, and without his help, we would never have achieved the same reach. The Call for Papers attracted submissions from all over the world, and we are grateful to everyone who allowed us the opportunity to consider their work. We thank all authors for devoting their thoughts into writing, submitting and – where applicable – revising their manuscripts. We are sorry that we were not able to accept everything that was submitted; however, we hope that the work that did not make it through with us has found a good home elsewhere. Merci also goes to the Emerald Publishing team for their support. Before moving on to our own narrative, we want to say an especially warm thank-you to all reviewers for their constructive, supportive and expert feedback. Without exception, each of the reviewers shared the same mission, namely, to provide expert and collegial guidance that facilitated authors to develop and improve their submitted work. These anonymous individuals do the hard work, behind the scenes, and make our community a better place to live and work. To repeat, thank you! Finally, our modest hope is that readers of the SI will find the work presented herein a stimulating read. Our rather more grandiose aspiration is that that it will give rise to new and exciting thoughts, questions, ideas and research projects.In this brief editorial, we aim to do a number of interconnected things. First, we will describe and discuss the accepted articles, highlighting what we believe are their important and interesting contributions. In the process, we explore und unpack some of the invisible work (Forsythe, 1999) that accounting ethnographers pursue as they venture out, immersing themselves into the field. For those engaged in on-site participation-observation work, this necessarily involves a physical commitment both of, and to, the time and space, but for the researcher herself (themselves), there is also an emotional-social overhead. After all, what renders ethnographies unique to other research methodologies is the extent to which the researcher is present “in” the researched phenomena. She is not observing the data from a distance but is bodily – and also perhaps, boldly – present, self-experiencing the field (Van Maanen, 2011). In this spirit, it is not surprising that ethnographers have been characterized as I-witnesses (Geertz, 1973), living in another(’s) world (Hastrup, 1997) or simply “being there” (Golden-Biddle and Locke, 1993).Taken together, this points to the highly exposed position of the ethnographer when they are in the field. Correspondingly, feelings associated with this exposure are vividly portrayed throughout this SI, and they lead to complexity both in terms of how to reflect and how to embrace reflexivity. While some might reduce the ethnographer’s exposed position in the field to that of a “walking tape recorder,” this characterization fails to take account of the invisible work that is required, which is physical, emotional and social. Thus, much of the ethnographic work remains largely invisible to the untrained eye (Forsythe, 1999). It goes unspoken and unseen, unless the authors choose to talk about it and allow us the opportunity to listen.Here, we consider ourselves lucky and blessed. The articles in this SI bring to the fore some of the invisible “heart” and “head” work that accounting ethnographers experience along the ethnographic journey [1]. This is pertinent as it offers a reflection on the role and experience of the ethnographer, which tends to be effaced in the write-up of journal-style manuscripts (Bamber and Tekathen, 2023a). Instead, the articles in this SI offer more nuanced and lifelike accounts of doing ethnographies. The collection of articles thereby contributes to our collective understanding of what it takes to do ethnographies. The articles paint a colorful picture that will hopefully encourage accounting scholars to celebrate this challenging but enriching way of conducting research.To this end, we have the privilege of introducing the articles in the SI as guest editors. While this editorial is principally about elaborating key takeaways and celebrating the manuscripts that were accepted and their authors, we take the opportunity to complement them with some additional reflections from our own interviews (n = 26) with fellow ethnographers on doing ethnographies in (management) accounting (Bamber and Tekathen, 2023b). Analysis of our data helps to convey some of the invisible work that accounting ethnographers pursue in their quest of being there in the field, as well as how they think and write about it. We have attempted to capture our thoughts in Figure 1.The first article in this SI by Claire Deng offers a comparative exploration of how ethnographic approaches are mobilized in anthropology vis-à-vis accounting. On the one hand, we can view this article as a context paper that helps us to situate the SI and to kick off the conversation on doing ethnographies in accounting. On the other hand, Deng’s comparative work offers a wealth of autoreflective insights as she – the ethnographer – describes and discusses ideas from the two disciplines. This is an article that focuses us, as guest editors, on notions of self-awareness, as it puts a mirror up/between ethnographic conduct in accounting research and anthropology. The reflection developed by Deng is not intended as a “mirror, mirror on the wall” (à la Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), but rather it urges the broader research community(-ies) to consider the vast field of possibilities. There are a wealth of untapped empirical contexts and methodological opportunities.This comparative approach is refreshing in that it moves beyond paradigmatic comparison within accounting. In other words, Deng focuses on ethnography, not questions of alternative versus mainstream accounting research. This allows a deep and meaningful comparison across domain boundaries and disciplinary contexts. Overall, the article alludes us to the phrase, “it could be otherwise.” Thus, in a practical sense, the article presents a helpful resource to reflect on our ethnographic field-, head- and text-work. It calls for reflexive enlargement, if not for change, in some of the intricate patterns of doing ethnographies.The next pair of articles continue the theme of matching reflections and reflexivity, as they reveal the heart-work that goes into “doing” ethnographic work. Specifically, they shine light on the role and place of emotions in accounting scholarship. Nathalie Repenning and Kai DeMott take us on a personal ethnographic journey that starts with experienced self-doubt and confusion over the encountered emotional challenges in the field. We see and hear the authors questioning their capacity to carry out ethnographic work, before the article transforms these feelings into an ethnographic strength. They seem to learn how to cope with and adapt to the various emotional challenges, thereby demonstrating the possibilities of being simultaneously cognizant of but versed in them. Thus, we view this as a transformative journey of the ethnographer(s) that turns “having emotions” as a researcher from a liability to an asset.Our immediate reaction is to offer a humble thank-you to the authors for opening up their field diaries to public scrutiny. To this end, as a reminder, the field diary is maybe the most personal and raw reflections on one’s encounters, thoughts, ideas and everyday experiences. It is written for one’s self, whereby we mean more than simply oneself. Hence, we are grateful to the authors for sharing an unprocessed window into the emotional experiences and struggles in the field and for the reflexivity demonstrated in the sensemaking, which gives indications of how an ethnographer might cope with those and what to make out of them.This article also allows us to reflect on the notion that ethnographic accounting research is “sober” (by which we mean something similar to unemotional). The authors themselves articulate this sense of what they should be and reflect on what one becomes when they dare to venture out and immerse themselves into the field. For instance, the article several times makes reference to the “politely indifferent observer.” Let us embark for a moment in a thought experiment. Indifference can, and often does, refer to “unbiased impartiality,” “unemotional apathy” or “lack of enthusiasm.” However, the word “indifferent” originates from indifferēns, meaning “making no distinction.” On this, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary offers an interesting alternative definition, flagged as archaic. It reads “lack of difference or distinction between two or more things.” Therefore, using the authors work, we wonder whether this offers a more inclusive reading of the “politely indifferent observer”?Like the first article by Deng, Repenning and DeMott refer to certain conventions of the accounting academy that may engender a potentially harmful side effect of idealizing a sober collection of data that has no place for emotions. However, the message seems clear, namely, doing ethnographic work is first and foremost a human undertaking, of which emotions are part and parcel. In this sense. there is indifference in the archaic way. There is a lack of difference between the ethnographer and field participants. They both feel, have emotions, reflect, judge and do much more when they encounter and engage with each other. This point allows us to foreshadow one of the main takeaways from the SI. The invisible work of the ethnographic experience is simultaneously both- and many-sided. It is both-sided as it entails closeness and distance that is emotional, social and physical. It is many-sided as it also encompasses bodily experiences and mental ones, heart- and head- and much besides.The next article by Caecilia Drujon d’Astros, Camille Gaudy and Marianne Strauch furthers this point by reflecting autoethnographically on how emotions do not quickly dissipate after the research is ended. Emotions not only govern our everyday lives, they shape us as people, they shape our work and shape relationships with field participants with whom we build intimate bonds during the ethnographic experience. In this collective emotional autoethnography, we feel the authors’ struggles on how to make sense of complex and lasting emotions. We read how they come to discover and realize that shame might be the(ir) way of navigating the terrain, and how they have tried to alleviate the feelings of shame through the reflexive and liberating act of writing, community building – where they seek to foster a state of belonging –, as well as taking a critical stance and research agenda. Their fascinating account offers helpful reflections and advice on how to go (get) through the necessary heart- and social-work. But above all, we are grateful for their bravery in showing what they mean by “double shame” as they draw on their own work and experiences. This reinforces in a way Repenning and DeMott’s earlier perspective, namely, that one dimension of shame emanates vis-à-vis the accounting research community’s expectations, in that the ethnographers are feeling emotions in what somehow “ought to be” (we emphasize the quotation marks) a “sober” activity. The second dimension of experienced shame emanates vis-à-vis field participants in that the ethnographers are feeling that they are instrumentalizing the close bonds with field participants, thereby potentially betraying their trust as well as threatening the carefully developed relationships.The only thing that saddens us is that the authors comment “To this day, we no longer feel the excitement and joy of the early days, nor the anger we might have felt when perceiving injustices during fieldwork.” The joy and excitement that has been the energizing emotions at the onset of the immersion have been washed out by “deep acting” – to follow Hochschild’s (1979) terminology – to conform to what was sensed as an academic must-be. This brings us back to one of the key messages of this SI. It is so important to foreground some of the invisible work of the ethnographic experience as “it could be otherwise.” And second, we reiterate that the invisible work of the ethnographic experience is both- and many-sided. The Sisyphean-esque ethnographer will always have some kind of “winged demon” picking over their shoulder. In Repenning and DeMott’s account, it appears to be concerns for academic integrity while in Drujon d’Astros, Gaudy and Strauch’s, it is a form of reflexive scientific detachment. As guest editors, interested in ethnographic approaches, we readily and easily relate to this. The message is that scientific notions such as analytical distance are, and will forever remain part of, the challenge of the ethnographic experience. Yet, there is another side, where the ethnographer can – and should – embrace their emotions, transforming them into a strength that opens the door for autoreflective feelings. There is the capacity to “do right” to the field that we ethnographers owe so much to.Turning closer to the autoreflective work that comes with the ethnographic experience and expanding on the notion of doing right to the field, but also to ourselves, the next article in this SI by Hugo Letiche and Ivo De Loo offers some fresh perspectives on how to approach and find peace in the simultaneously both- and many-sided ethnographic work. It does so, by reflecting on the accountability of the To do this, the authors draw on the work of The account turns to the of how to the various and for in the ethnographic and how to close – at – an ethnographic we are at accountability which also shine through in the two of this the ethnographer, the field participants to as the and the academic accounting community to as the other of the in their Letiche and De Loo their in an which that as the are able to the ethnographic the authors’ to make sense of the encountered difference in to between the ethnographers and the researched an the ethnographers are how to close their account in this of accountability In other words, they themselves how they might pursue their of the ethnographic encounter and how to the between the researched and the ethnographers that in the authors whether they could accept the position from the researched or whether that might betraying their own Yet, should they choose not to accept the position by the would they not their own that for to the as well as the ethnographic to to the field. To their way through the the authors to the work of and his of the that to human As the authors vividly is a to the or of and in for the of this the for of the and the ethnography to We that choose which they will For the authors, it is the not of the in the earlier two articles might have been the to “sober” feeling for the accounting as we have written the not us that “it could be otherwise.” In this sense, Letiche and De Loo complement the message in to the that the ethnographer is and can the for Hence, we see the both- and also in their so much on emotions emotions of and are made but more in that the ethnographer is to the also to the own sense of and This is another intricate dimension of the invisible work that goes into the ethnographic experience and to the and article in this SI, Ivo De Loo and provide us with a window into the invisible of a who is for This gives rise to a many-sided conversation about the heart- and as well as that is of the They their moving from a position in a highly to a which – it seems – especially in terms of in many this is a of the of the public however, most academic accounts of this change, this one comes from the social for the agenda. their ethnographic account, we are how they are in their For the is able to celebrate the joy of the new – such as and – as they experience but they also feel and as they are simultaneously both and our own reading is that they are by the team as and and their in terms of allows the authors to develop and discuss some of the of joy and so and these with the and so their account some of the of both and – such as hard and – these authors provide us a window into some what the collection of articles in the SI is their and to bring to the fore some of the challenges of “doing” accounting ethnographic work. This to some deep reflections on the invisible work, and some reflexivity. We learn about the and struggles of the as well as the in relationships and how the of about them was at We the authors’ and which allows us a window into their personal reflections and broader on how to the articles in this SI to shine light on and some of the invisible work that is by the researcher into the ethnographic experience. the reflections and reflexivity, the heart-work most The heart-work in this SI of navigating emotional and challenges, as well as in one’s own and the ethnographer to find to through reflexive We can also – more – in these accounts the that is part of the of conducting ethnographic scholarship. the building of being grateful for but also them at and their Finally, from this collection of articles, we learn that ethnographic entails physical work. 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