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Question your teaspoons: tea-drinking, coping and commercialisation across three planning organisations

Abigail Schoneboom (Department of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK)
Jason Slade (Department of Urban Studies and Planning, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK)

Journal of Organizational Ethnography

ISSN: 2046-6749

Article publication date: 27 May 2020

Issue publication date: 20 October 2020

255

Abstract

Purpose

As part of a wider ethnographic project that examines the significance of the public interest across three public and private sector UK planning organisations, this paper uses tea-drinking as a lens to understand structural forces around outsourcing and commercialisation. Reflecting across the five case studies, the analysis supports Burawoy's (2017) recent critique of Desmond's Relational Ethnography (2014). Using Perec's (1997[1973]) notion of the “infra-ordinary” as an anchor, it highlights the insight that arises from an intimate focus on mundane rituals and artefacts.

Design/methodology/approach

The data were gathered through participant observation, chronicling the researchers' encounters with tea in each of the sites. A respondent-led photography exercise was successful at two sites. Up to 40 days of ethnographic fieldwork were carried out in each site.

Findings

The tea-drinking narratives, while providing an intact description of discrete case study sites, exist in conversation with each other, providing an opportunity for comparison that informs the analysis and helping us to understand the meaning-making process of the planners both in and across these contexts.

Originality/value

The paper contributes to critical planning literature (Murphy and Fox-Rogers, 2015; Raco et al., 2016), illuminating structural forces around outsourcing and commercialisation. It also generates methodological reflection on using an everyday activity to probe organisational culture and promote critical reflection on “weighty” issues across study sites.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. We also thank the other members of the WITPI research team (Malcolm Tait, Geoff Vigar, Andy Inch, Zan Gunn, Ben Clifford, and Imogen Johnson) for their support with the research and analysis process. We are grateful to the research participants for their time and creative input and also to the reviewers and the editor for their insightful and constructive critique.

Citation

Schoneboom, A. and Slade, J. (2020), "Question your teaspoons: tea-drinking, coping and commercialisation across three planning organisations", Journal of Organizational Ethnography, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 311-326. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOE-10-2019-0036

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited

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