TY - JOUR
T1 - Doing ethnographic research in the Fiji Islands
T2 - research method and research ethics issues
AU - James, Kieran Edmond
N1 - Dr Kieran Edmond James is a Senior Lecturer at the School of
Business and Creative Industries, University of the West of
Scotland, Paisley campus. He was formerly Accounting Professor
at the University of Fiji, Saweni campus, from 2013-15. He
researches in Fiji soccer history, Indonesian popular music, men
and masculinities, Singapore politics, sociology of soccer, and
sociology of sport. He has published in Soccer & Society, Sport
History Review, Sport in Society, and Frontiers Sport and Active
Living on Fiji soccer.
PY - 2023/5/11
Y1 - 2023/5/11
N2 - The aim of this paper is to consider research method and research ethics issues in the unique location of the Fiji Islands. After arguing that Eurocentric, Anglo-American ethics clearance processes, embedded into Global North Universities, are culturally-inappropriate, in the Fiji setting, I go on to imagine alternative ethics clearance questions which pick up on and reflect adequately Fiji’s social and economic context. I discuss and explore why traversing relationships, relationships that traverse time and space through giving, receiving, obligation, reimbursement and forgiveness, often emerge in the Fiji context, and how they can be a local, social equilibrium, which benefits both parties. My own research on Fiji soccer history is used to provide illustrations and anecdotes throughout the paper.
AB - The aim of this paper is to consider research method and research ethics issues in the unique location of the Fiji Islands. After arguing that Eurocentric, Anglo-American ethics clearance processes, embedded into Global North Universities, are culturally-inappropriate, in the Fiji setting, I go on to imagine alternative ethics clearance questions which pick up on and reflect adequately Fiji’s social and economic context. I discuss and explore why traversing relationships, relationships that traverse time and space through giving, receiving, obligation, reimbursement and forgiveness, often emerge in the Fiji context, and how they can be a local, social equilibrium, which benefits both parties. My own research on Fiji soccer history is used to provide illustrations and anecdotes throughout the paper.
KW - Althusserian Marxism
KW - Fiji Islands
KW - historical materialism
KW - income-inequality
KW - moral obligations
KW - qualitative research methods
KW - research ethics
KW - traversing relationships
U2 - 10.1177/15327086231172226
DO - 10.1177/15327086231172226
M3 - Article
JO - Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies
JF - Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies
ER -
