Beyond participants–researchers–research outsiders: food talk and the (co-)construction of knowledge in multi-sited participatory ethnography

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Flora, Christina; Karatsareas, Petros; Lytra, Vally and Pepe, Giulia. 2025. Beyond participants–researchers–research outsiders: food talk and the (co-)construction of knowledge in multi-sited participatory ethnography. In: Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald; Anne Storch and Viveka Velupillai, eds. Language in Strange and Familiar Places: Linguistic Research in Uncharted Territories. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, pp. 223-256. ISBN 9783119148825 [Book Section]

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Official URL: https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.151...

Abstract or Description

In participatory ethnography, the boundaries between participants and researchers often become blurred, as both parties routinely shift roles throughout the knowledge construction process. This blurring contests and challenges the traditional power dynamics imposed by the research process. In this paper, we discuss how the design of a pilot project on the intersection of food, language and migration not only dismantled these barriers but also created opportunities for “research outsiders” to actively participate in the research. Conceived as a multi-sited ethnography with collaborative and sensory elements, the project brought together Italian-speaking migrants working in London’s hospitality sector and a team of researchers for a series of dinners. These dinners explored how migrants used food talk to position themselves within London’s food scene against the backdrop of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyse two key episodes to illustrate the complex ways in which research participants took ownership of the knowledge co-construction process. This included making bids for the conversational floor and actively supporting, shifting and extending the conversation’s agenda. Additionally, due to the public nature of the spaces where we conducted our research, non-participants with stakes in the research (a waiter and a chef) actively and knowingly contributed to the negotiation of research identities and the polyphonic narratives being co-shaped around the table. Participants and research outsiders performed various roles, interacting not only with one another but also with the research space and the sensory and physical elements around them. We consider how our research complicates the roles that participants, researchers and “research outsiders” assume in the construction of knowledge in ethnographic work and the methodological and ethical implications created by the dynamic, interconnected and shifting nature of these roles.

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Book Section

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111707501-008