INSIDE AN ETHNOGRAPHIC IMMERSION WITH HOMELESS PEOPLE IN NANCY: TACTICS, DRIFTS, AND EMOTIONS OF THE RESEARCHER IN THE FIELD

Abstract

Centered on the “backroom” of the ethnographer working on the ground with homeless people, this article intends to detail the pangs and techniques of the ethnographic method. These are realities specific to the investigation, usually smoothed out—or even erased—from research reports which stick to a general presentation of the methodology and to the argumentation of the results. Thus, this text first presents the tactics and the “bricolage” implemented to access the field, and to maintain and integrate oneself there, not without the emergence of blunders and potential drifts on the part of the researcher. We then discuss emotions and affects subjectively felt by the investigator in the field, aiming to explain what this says about the subject under study. In other words, we propose a detour through the subjectivity of the researcher to better comprehend the street world and its indigenous norms.