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      Call for Papers: Hierarchies of domesticity – spatial and social boundaries. Deadline for submissions is 30th September, 2024. Full details can be read here.

      Articles to be no longer than 6,000 words (excluding footnotes and bibliography) and submitted in two forms: an anonymised version in which all references to the authors’ institution and publications are omitted; and a full version including the authors’ titles and institutional affiliations. For complete instructions on style, formatting, etc., please consult: https://www.plutojournals.com/wp-content/uploads/WOLG-Instructions-for-Authors2023.pdf 

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      Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation

      Volume 16, Issue 1
       
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      • Abstract: found
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      (Shared) ethnicity in ethnographic research on clandestine and informal practices in the migrant and ethnic minority economy : Methodological and ethical challenges

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            Abstract

            This article addresses the methodological and ethical challenges of ethnographic research on sensitive topics such as clandestine practices in the migrant and ethnic minority economy. Drawing on related criminological and sociology of deviance literature I draw on my experiences of insider-ethnographic research in the Chinese migrant and ethnic minority economy in the Netherlands and Romania to demonstrate how stigmas related to race/ethnicity and clandestine practices can strongly shape access, rapport and researcher’s positionality in the field. Research participants’ concerns about these stigmas also revealed ethical questions on how to report on clandestine and informal practices without contributing to further stigmatisation and racialisation. At the same time, my experiences show that whether clandestine practices and race/ethnicity are considered sensitive topics is an emergent issue. In the Netherlands, due to active enforcement of clandestine practices in the migrant and ethnic minority economy, these practices were a sensitive topic of inquiry. In Romania, by contrast, clandestine practices were not treated as sensitive subject matter as these were normalised by research participants and broader Romanian society, due to a lack of active enforcement and criminalisation.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Contributors
            Jing Hiah:
            Bio :

            Dr Jing Hiah is an Assistant Professor in Criminology in the Erasmus School of Law, at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands and a Dutch Research Council NWO Rubicon fellow at Migration Mobilities Bristol at the University of Bristol, UK

            Journal
            Journal ID (doi): 10.13169/workorgalaboglob
            Title: Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation
            Abbreviated Title: WOLG
            Publisher: Pluto Journals
            ISSN (Electronic): 1745-6428
            ISSN (Print): 1745-641X
            Publication date Pub: 14 May 2022
            Publication date Collection: 2022
            Volume: 16
            Issue: 1
            Pages: 88-103
            Article
            DOI: 10.13169/workorgalaboglob.16.1.0088
            SO-VID: 25d32310-fbfd-451e-bbbe-38763db90c89
            Copyright ©
            License:

            All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

            History
            Page count
            Pages: 17

            ScienceOpen disciplines: Sociology,Labor law,Political science,Labor & Demographic economics,Political economics
            Keywords: insider research,ethnography,participant observation,research on sensitive topics,Chinese migrant workers,Romania,Netherlands,Clandestine labour

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