“Is it safe?” – Doing ethnography on safety cover ups
Journal of Organizational Ethnography
ISSN: 2046-6749
Article publication date: 3 November 2020
Issue publication date: 22 March 2021
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the ethicality, morality and partiality of at-home ethnography (AHE) through an account of organisational wrongdoing at a chemical plant.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper utilises an AHE example from an 18-month period at a chemical plant. Following the account, the paper reflexively explores ethical, moral and partial issues.
Findings
A well-crafted and reflexive, insider account of organisational wrongdoing enables the demonstration of the issues of ethics, morals and partiality faced by an ethnographer in the field. Whilst this is not an autoethnographic account, it is able to draw upon some contemporary thinking from autoethnography to inform reflexivity.
Originality/value
The account provides unique insight into an organizational world, the inner workings of a chemical site, which is often inaccessible to others.
Keywords
Citation
Vickers, D.A. (2021), "“Is it safe?” – Doing ethnography on safety cover ups", Journal of Organizational Ethnography, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 36-49. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOE-12-2019-0041
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited