Die reflexive Couch. Feldforschungssupervision in der Ethnographie.

in Zeitschrift für Volkskunde (2013), 109(II), 181203

This article introduces ethno-psychoanalytically informed supervision of fieldwork as a methodological instrument of reflexive ethnography to the methodological de- bate of the discipline, and aims to ... [more ▼]

This article introduces ethno-psychoanalytically informed supervision of fieldwork as a methodological instrument of reflexive ethnography to the methodological de- bate of the discipline, and aims to strengthen this approach in research and teach- ing. The authors identify a contradiction between recurrent calls for reflexive re- search practices and the simultaneous fending off of (self-)reflexive modes of inter- pretation, which are frequently dismissed as overly psychologising or ‘narcissistic’. Using a case study, they show how in research supervision the process of associative interpretation within a group mirrors the irritation of the researcher and the emo- tional dynamics of the field situation. Taboos, power relations, structures of mean- ing and agency within the field are made visible as scenic arrangements and opened up to reflexive interpretation and objectivation. Supervision helps to resolve re- search blockages and to establish the necessary reflexive distance in relation to the field, because of the close relationship between psychoanalytical supervision meth- ods and an open, processual and dialogical ethnography. On an epistemological level, both supervision and research reflection are grounded in the mutual interde- pendence of the (researching) subject’s experience and overarching socio-cultural structures of meaning. The methodological-theoretical parallels between ethno- psychoanalysis and Bourdieu’s understanding of scientific reflexivity are developed, leading to a discussion of the conditions of ethnographic research in academic in- stitutional settings with their mechanisms of exclusions and potentials for suppres- sion and distortion, which are identified as a desideratum in the discipline’s self- reflection. [less ▲]