Paper short abstract:

Gender and politics scholars are increasingly making appeals to ethnographic methodology to analyse parliaments. Drawing on experience of ethnographic methodology in the UK and European Parliaments, this paper explores how the tools and practices of ethnography travel between different parliaments.

Paper long abstract:

Gender and politics scholars are increasingly making appeals to ethnographic methodology in order to build in heterogeneity, agency, and contradictions int their analyses of gender performance in parliamentary settings, and to capture the notion that gender is performed over time. This academic movement has accompanied a practitioner movement to work towards gender-sensitive parliaments. This paper asks: how do the tools and practices of ethnography travel between different parliaments?

More specifically, this paper draws upon fieldwork conducted in the UK parliament and European parliaments, to discuss some of the tensions when the optics and practices of ethnography are applied to different parliamentary settings. The paper has three sections to examine tensions when conducting ethnographies in different legislative settings. It draws upon (1) the legislative differences of the parliamentary settings and with this in mind - whether there can be a distinct subtype of political ethnography, known as 'parliamentary ethnography'; (2) conceptual and interactional differences in the very meaning of gender in transnational environments; and (3) the practical differences in terms of facilitating a parliamentary ethnography, learning from the two fieldsites. Overall, this paper contributes to emerging methodological debates about conducting ethnography in parliamentary settings.