Paper short abstract:

This paper draws on ethnographies of political campaigns during the 2024 UK General Election to explore how women parliamentary candidates experience election campaigns. We reflect on some of the methodological challenges faced when undertaking ethnography on this political terrain.

Paper long abstract:

While ethnographies of everyday politics have long been deployed within anthropology and related fields, political elites have only recently become subjects of ethnographic attention, while even less research has explored ethnographically political campaigns and the experiences of candidates. This paper draws on several ethnographies of election campaigns conducted by the authors across the North West, South East, and South West of England during the 2024 UK General Election. The aim of the ‘campaign ethnographies’ was to explore how women parliamentary candidates of different political parties experienced election campaigns, with a focus upon how they navigate everyday moments of harm, intimidation, sexism, abuse, and violence on the campaign trail and in their doorstep interactions with voters. We observed candidates at public meetings, community visits, campaign events, election hustings, and party conferences, and spoke with party members and supporters during our everyday interactions on the campaign trail and through in-depth ethnographic interviews.

The election was marked by heightened emotions and a concerning rise in intimidation and abuse faced by candidates and their campaign teams. This paper reflects on some of the challenges faced when undertaking a campaign ethnography on this political terrain, such as navigating positionalities vis à vis candidates, campaign teams, and voters, co-constructing a relational ethics with our interlocuters, and bearing and sharing the emotional labour of the campaign. We also draw on some of the challenges that are presented by the idiosyncrasies of the UK electoral system and what these mean for practicing this type of ‘campaign ethnography’.