Visceral dilemmas in/of production: Rethinking the politics and ethics of (undercover) ethnographic research

Abstract

The proposed paper reflects the politics and ethics of undercover ethnographic research. In 2013 one of us got hired as an assembly line worker to conduct five-month long study on embodiments of manual work, human-machine relationships and labour conditions in a major global electric factory in the Czech Republic.

A carnal sociology, that is "doing and writing ethnography that takes full epistemic advantage of the visceral nature of social life" (Wacquant) seemed to be an appropriate research strategy. With stories of Labour code violations and workers' rights abuses at global shop floors in the Czech Republic, factory managers' lack of reaction to our requests, and encouraged by Nancy Scheper-Hughes' experience that to learn "of the hidden suffering of an invisible, silenced and institutionalized population" is often hardly done otherwise than in disguise, we decided to explore undercover what is happening behind the factory walls.

Before the start of the fieldwork, the decision for undercover research appeared justified. And given the lack of clear ethical procedures and regulations of social science research in the Czech Republic in the form of institutionalized review boards, we even didn't face any questions from the academic community.

The situation started to become more complex, however, when the ethnographer entered the field and everyday intimate relations with her co-workers unfolded. A myriad of ethical, political and epistemic dilemmas had to be permanently faced.

As extreme as the undercover research is, we want to argue that many of the dilemmas are shared across conceded and undercover research situations. It is mostly that the undercover intensifies and sheds new light on them.