An (auto)ethnographic study of the relations between reflexive development and the production of interpersonal social research in Salt River's Locomotive Hotel

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dc.contributor.advisorDaya, Sharien_ZA
dc.contributor.authorBlake, Evanen_ZA
dc.date.accessioned2015-06-15T06:55:52Z
dc.date.available2015-06-15T06:55:52Z
dc.date.issued2014en_ZA
dc.descriptionIncludes bibliographical references.en_ZA
dc.description.abstractFieldwork conducted around The Locomotive Hotel, a drinking establishment in Salt River, took place across a two year period involving building relations with a diverse range of local or regular patrons. During this period there was a lack of reflexive capacity and insight in the researcher to contextualise and theorise the experiences of encountering these patrons in the hotel. Through prolonged, intense and tension filled fieldwork - that was seemingly unrelated to the dissertation - experience was gained that, on reflection, was fundamentally informed and in a recursive virtual dialogue with past research experiences. It was recognised that this dialogue establishes a metanarrative in relation to the fieldwork conducted in The Locomotive Hotel with a narrative traced of how insight through embodied and experienced notions of becoming through encountering difference became essential to retrospectively understanding the interactions with and between patrons in the hotel. These encounters and interactions between patrons form complex systems of relation building; systems that are established through patterns of encountering difference. Self in the hotel is generally reconstituted through dialectical relationships with difference from past to present through notions of place, memory and community. In this unfolding of past and present, a single social norm and practice in the hotel is identified, presented and discussed: the drinking of a brown bottle quart explores the relations of sociability between patrons. The common consumption of a beer can act as a pretext to pull otherwise very different patrons and their varied imaginings and senses of places into sustained and repeated encounters. Implicit within these relations are patterns of exclusion. Escalating tensions between self and difference can lead to irreconcilable differences emerging; differences that may be too great to be openly encountered. Such challenging differences can lead to notions of self, others, community and place being reshaped in potentially linear and closed off ways. These arguments presented in this dissertation in the context of the hotel conceptualise research as a process rather than a theoretical output. They are arguments that demonstrate the fallacy of a researcher as able to neatly and rationally describe their positional situated-ness as distinctly and demonstrably being on the outside of a group or crowd in one moment and inside the next. It is an argument for a form of ethnography and engaging with positionality that demonstrates the researcher as human, as unsure and fallible in their attempts to understand their place and relation to new contexts. It is ethnographic work that has an ethical and political commitment beyond ticking methodological checkboxes.en_ZA
dc.identifier.apacitationBlake, E. (2014). <i>An (auto)ethnographic study of the relations between reflexive development and the production of interpersonal social research in Salt River's Locomotive Hotel</i>. (Thesis). University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Science ,Department of Environmental and Geographical Science. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11427/13062en_ZA
dc.identifier.chicagocitationBlake, Evan. <i>"An (auto)ethnographic study of the relations between reflexive development and the production of interpersonal social research in Salt River's Locomotive Hotel."</i> Thesis., University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Science ,Department of Environmental and Geographical Science, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/13062en_ZA
dc.identifier.citationBlake, E. 2014. An (auto)ethnographic study of the relations between reflexive development and the production of interpersonal social research in Salt River's Locomotive Hotel. University of Cape Town.en_ZA
dc.identifier.ris TY - Thesis / Dissertation AU - Blake, Evan AB - Fieldwork conducted around The Locomotive Hotel, a drinking establishment in Salt River, took place across a two year period involving building relations with a diverse range of local or regular patrons. During this period there was a lack of reflexive capacity and insight in the researcher to contextualise and theorise the experiences of encountering these patrons in the hotel. Through prolonged, intense and tension filled fieldwork - that was seemingly unrelated to the dissertation - experience was gained that, on reflection, was fundamentally informed and in a recursive virtual dialogue with past research experiences. It was recognised that this dialogue establishes a metanarrative in relation to the fieldwork conducted in The Locomotive Hotel with a narrative traced of how insight through embodied and experienced notions of becoming through encountering difference became essential to retrospectively understanding the interactions with and between patrons in the hotel. These encounters and interactions between patrons form complex systems of relation building; systems that are established through patterns of encountering difference. Self in the hotel is generally reconstituted through dialectical relationships with difference from past to present through notions of place, memory and community. In this unfolding of past and present, a single social norm and practice in the hotel is identified, presented and discussed: the drinking of a brown bottle quart explores the relations of sociability between patrons. The common consumption of a beer can act as a pretext to pull otherwise very different patrons and their varied imaginings and senses of places into sustained and repeated encounters. Implicit within these relations are patterns of exclusion. Escalating tensions between self and difference can lead to irreconcilable differences emerging; differences that may be too great to be openly encountered. Such challenging differences can lead to notions of self, others, community and place being reshaped in potentially linear and closed off ways. These arguments presented in this dissertation in the context of the hotel conceptualise research as a process rather than a theoretical output. They are arguments that demonstrate the fallacy of a researcher as able to neatly and rationally describe their positional situated-ness as distinctly and demonstrably being on the outside of a group or crowd in one moment and inside the next. It is an argument for a form of ethnography and engaging with positionality that demonstrates the researcher as human, as unsure and fallible in their attempts to understand their place and relation to new contexts. It is ethnographic work that has an ethical and political commitment beyond ticking methodological checkboxes. DA - 2014 DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - 2014 T1 - An (auto)ethnographic study of the relations between reflexive development and the production of interpersonal social research in Salt River's Locomotive Hotel TI - An (auto)ethnographic study of the relations between reflexive development and the production of interpersonal social research in Salt River's Locomotive Hotel UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11427/13062 ER - en_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11427/13062
dc.identifier.vancouvercitationBlake E. An (auto)ethnographic study of the relations between reflexive development and the production of interpersonal social research in Salt River's Locomotive Hotel. [Thesis]. University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Science ,Department of Environmental and Geographical Science, 2014 [cited yyyy month dd]. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/13062en_ZA
dc.language.isoengen_ZA
dc.publisher.departmentDepartment of Environmental and Geographical Scienceen_ZA
dc.publisher.facultyFaculty of Scienceen_ZA
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Cape Town
dc.subject.otherEnvironmental and Geographical Scienceen_ZA
dc.titleAn (auto)ethnographic study of the relations between reflexive development and the production of interpersonal social research in Salt River's Locomotive Hotelen_ZA
dc.typeMaster Thesis
dc.type.qualificationlevelMasters
dc.type.qualificationnameMSocScen_ZA
uct.type.filetypeText
uct.type.filetypeImage
uct.type.publicationResearchen_ZA
uct.type.resourceThesisen_ZA
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