Introduction: Towards an Ethnography of Ordinary Gardening - A Taste for Gardening: Classed and Gendered Practices - page 9

in orientation' (Hermes 1995, 178) and Gray (1992) describes her study of gendered
VCR use as 'having ethnographic intentions' (Gray 1992, 32). Moreover, media
researchers have mounted valid objections to the charge wrought by those who call
for more anthropologically centred media studies. Gray (1997, 100) for example,
argues that in making a comparison between cultural studies and anthropology, the
focus - so crucial in media and cultural studies - on the analysis of the link between
the textual negotiation of meaning and the social and the construction of cultural
identities, is ignored. Spending longer periods of time with respondents, she asserts,
would not necessarily make for a more productive analysis, if such questions are
bypassed. And Moores (1996) raising practical objections, argues that it is difficult
enough to cross the doorstep when researching daily domestic life, but 'to expect us
to then live alongside these informants, “immersed” in the routines of a family or
household group, is in most cases unrealistic. Such intrusions would not be tolerated'
(Moores 1996, 31). Moores argues that interviews alone do allow for the possibility
that the researcher can glean 'patterns of meaning and power' about the familial
domestic setting and uncover the interpretative experiences of media consumption
for respondents. Moreover, he asserts that qualitative audience research has, by
bringing cultural politics to everyday practises, 'sharpened the critical edge' of
ethnography (ibid.).
In the light of these commentaries, I set my own work in the tradition of media
and cultural studies work that is ethnographic in intention. I cannot claim the
anthropological use of the method which involves living with the subjects of the
research over a considerable period of time, and nor, for the reasons given by Gray
and others, do I believe such immersion was necessary. This topic, centred as it is on
questions of meaning, cultural identity and on the interpretative use of the lifestyle
media, uses 'ethnography' as a descriptor because of the types of questions it poses
and the analysis it draws upon, as much as it relies on the term ethnography to
describe its theory of method.
Ethnography, Emotion and the Self
I form an important part of this study; like all writers, I am the researcher and producer
of the text. In this study, however, the self in relation to my authorship is more
visible: aspects of my life are interwoven at various points through the study; the
research is located in a place I still call 'home'; my 'self' was known to respondents
before the research process began and vice versa; and my family is connected to the
place, the issues and the methods of this study. In this section I explore the issues my
personal proximity to the study raises: I explore my positionality in relation to the
research; I discuss how my autobiographical location and experience might act as a
resource; and I consider how my emotional, subjective and personal feelings impact
on the research.
The focus of this study centres on how a group of other people are located by class
and gender. Yet I too have a particular (classed and gendered) location which I believe
can be used to foreground themes that are central to this study. Class was centrally
important at the early inception of cultural studies (Barker and Beezer 1992; Milner