'I don't want you sitting next to me': the macro, meso and micro of gaining and maintaining access to government organisations during ethnographic fieldwork

摘要

The challenges of access in ethnographic research are well-documented in methodological literature, but poorly described inudmany empirical studies. To date, very little research has focused on access to organizations. In this article, I describe the ongoingudaccess challenges in a period of fieldwork in UK Jobcentre Plus (welfare) offices. Access was granted in four phases: organizationaludaccess at a national level (macro), access to individual offices (meso), access to advisors as interview subjects (very limited micro),udand finally access to shadow one welfare advisor (limited micro). However, access to observe multiple advisors (full micro) did notudoccur. In this article, I draw on field notes and interview extracts from advisors as one source of ethnographic data and compareudthese to data generated in interviews with benefit claimants who were recruited from charities and interviewed away fromudJobcentre Plus offices. Differences were found between these two data sources, which highlight that access arrangementsudimpacted on the data collected. Researchers should acknowledge and reflect upon access arrangements at the macro-, meso-, andudmicrolevel in the presentation of ethnographic research findings.