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Question your teaspoons: tea-drinking, coping and commercialisation across three planning organisations

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Abigail Schoneboom

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Abstract

Abstract Purpose – As part of a wider ethnographic project that examines the significance of the public interest across three public and private sector UK planning organisations, this paper uses tea-drinking as a lens to understand structural forces around outsourcing and commercialisation. Reflecting across the five case studies, the analysis supports Burawoy’s (2017) recent critique of Desmond’s Relational Ethnography (2014). Using Perec’s (1997[1973]) notion of the “infra-ordinary” as an anchor, it highlights the insight that arises from an intimate focus on mundane rituals and artefacts. Design/methodology/approach – The data were gathered through participant observation, chronicling the researchers’ encounters with tea in each of the sites. A respondent-led photography exercise was successful at two sites. Up to 40 days of ethnographic fieldwork were carried out in each site. Findings – The tea-drinking narratives, while providing an intact description of discrete case study sites, exist in conversation with each other, providing an opportunity for comparison that informs the analysis and helping us to understand the meaning-making process of the planners both in and across these contexts. Originality/value – The paper contributes to critical planning literature (Murphy and Fox-Rogers, 2015; Raco et al., 2016), illuminating structural forces around outsourcing and commercialisation. It also generates methodological reflection on using an everyday activity to probe organisational culture and promote critical reflection on “weighty” issues across study sites. Keywords Planning, Privatisation, Relationality, Commercialisation, Infra-ordinary, Intensification Paper type Research paper

Publication metadata

Author(s): Schoneboom A, Slade J

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Journal of Organizational Ethnography

Year: 2020

Volume: 9

Issue: 3

Pages: 311-326

Online publication date: 28/05/2020

Acceptance date: 06/04/2020

Date deposited: 24/08/2020

ISSN (print): 2046-6749

ISSN (electronic): 2046-6757

Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited

URL: https://doi.org/10.1108/JOE-10-2019-0036

DOI: 10.1108/JOE-10-2019-0036

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