Paper long abstract:

My paper will explore some of the methodological, ethical and epistemological issues that arose for me while conducting ethnographic research on feminist political activism in Ireland. Many social commentators have lamented the de-radicalization of politics and the de-politicization of people through the processes of neoliberalism and globalisation in late capitalist modernity. My project was to explore the possibilities for feminist politics in relation to the localised effects of these processes. How do I conduct an ethnography of activism and activists affected by but also challenging the effects of globalisation in their own communities? How do I conduct an ethnography of feminist activism as a feminist ethnographer who is also implicated in global flows of capital, information and politics? In the process of working through these issues, I became the 'ethnographer-as-activist', an engaged complicity positioned to work with activists to support and effect social change, rather than studying them.