"You're Not Allowed to Ride Without a Ticket, Ms. Magistra!"

Reflections on the Class Dimension Between Everyday Life and Ethnographic Research Practice

Abstract

Social inequalities are produced, reproduced, and questioned in everyday situations. In this paper, I approach the role of social class in social interactions in my ethnographic field research in Uruguay and Chile. First, I introduce significant social science approaches to the multidimensionality of power relations in Latin America and contrast these with reflections on my fieldwork experiences and my academic socialization process in Austria. Then, I reflect on my positionality in relation to prevailing power relations drawing on three field situations during my doctoral research (2009-2015). I suggest, that the attention to processes of categorization and exclusion during fieldwork contributes to a more nuanced interpretation of field data, a better understanding of social inequality, and increased sensitivity to exploitative, exclusionary, and devaluing practices in the field and beyond.