Self-Ethnography, or How My Story Affects the Story
Abstract
Some of the main findings in this book result from two successive participant observations in two different five-star hotels – bearing Western brands – in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I was hired a cook for the first season in 2008 (equivalent to the summer break in Europe) and as waiter-cum-wine trainer in the second hotel the following year, in 2009. As a participant observer, it is customary in the field of anthropology to comply with a self-ethnography exercise before presenting collected qualitative data, in an attempt of an “objectivation of the self”. The present prologue does not aim at demonstrating the limited biasness of the findings, thanks to the objectivation of the status of the researcher. I personally do not believe in the possibility of a “temporary acculturation process” as a valid scientific investigation method. I believe firmly however in the necessity of proceeding to what the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called a “socio-analysis”, in order to become aware of “a self-consciousness of being me as another”. The traditional fear of “going native” would not be relevant anymore, as my two participant observations were preceded by a 4-year sojourn in Malaysia during which I happened to work, get married, convert to Islam and became a father.
in: Identity at Work