Gauging the Gatekeepers: Negotiating Anthropological Research in a Tertiary Level Australian Hospital: Failure, Fallout, and a Change in Direction for Paediatric Cardiac Research

This article describes and comments on the process, subsequent machinations and failure to negotiate an ethnographic research project in a tertiary level teaching hospital in Australia. For social scientists and those from the humanities who attempt to fully engage with the biomedical domain, the en...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 2018-01, Vol.143 (2), p.137-152
Main Author: Hunter, Cynthia L
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anthropology
Appreciation
Biomedicine
Cardiology
Collaboration
Ethics
Ethnographic research
Ethnography
Families & family life
Field study
Heart surgery
Hospitals
Humanities
Intensive care
Medical anthropology
Medical research
Medicine
Multiculturalism & pluralism
Negotiation
Paradigms
Patients
Pediatrics
Population
Power
Professionals
Qualitative research
Recruitment
Reflexivity
Researchers
Resilience
Resistance
Social capital
Social groups
Social power
Social sciences
Social scientists
Teaching
Teams
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Summary:This article describes and comments on the process, subsequent machinations and failure to negotiate an ethnographic research project in a tertiary level teaching hospital in Australia. For social scientists and those from the humanities who attempt to fully engage with the biomedical domain, the engagement is not always seamless (Hume et al. 2018; van der Geest & Finkler 2004; Barnett 1985). The differences between hard scientific paradigms and the social sciences or humanities paradigms (Cassell 2002), and a lack of appreciation and understanding of one for the other is often an issue that continues to pose ethical and moral challenges. Ethics and medical anthropology are increasingly discussed and debated; in particular where two different social groups in an unequal power relationship (social capital) interface, for example, the ethnographic researcher with medical and hospital professionals (Mapedzahama and Dune 2017; Fainzang 2015). Nor is the impact of a failed project invisible or disaffective on the qualitative research team or principal researcher. There is emotional fallout at a personal and professional level that requires reflexivity, resistance and resilience before any moving forward can be accomplished; nevertheless, moving on can be achieved.
ISSN:0044-2666