The (im)possibility of poststructuralist ethnography - researching identities in borrowed spaces

The notion of site is critical to ethnography and provides a sense of spatial stability - somewhere the researcher enters in order to research what is contained within. Using contemporary understandings of space, the author reflects on two studies to explore the (im)possibility of poststructuralist ethnography. The first study was undertaken in a 'real' school utilising a multi-method approach over a long period of time. The other was conducted in community-based schools where minority language and culture are taught. Such schools operate on a part-time basis and are often referred to as 'after hours' schools. These operate, as if by stealth, in borrowed spaces - schools not in use by their normal classes, during normal school times. The nature of these schools necessitated utilising different research approaches. The almost transient nature of 'after hours' schools reinforce temporal-spatial instabilities as critical to understanding site as social rather than fixed.