Female Care Workers in Multiple Locations – Research at Multiple Sites Methodological Decisions, Multi-Sited Ethnography

Abstract

Abstract The investigation of the integration of East-Central European nurses into global labour market excluded the possible analysis of a spatially well definable group at the beginning of the research project; therefore the application of a different method became necessary. These women move between not only home and a new place of residence abroad, but, depending on job opportunities and various life situations, live in a number of countries, changing sites. Consequently, it has seemed adequate to focus on the specific features of the subject matter and to choose sites of research accordingly. For the study of migration it is a significant contribution of multi-sited ethnography, beyond the pragmatic novelty of methodology, i.e. the multiplication of sites, that transgressing the national and international interpretive framework, it opens up transnational dimension and draws attention to the fact that new entities (e. g. networks and sites) may come into being that rewrite the topography of migration. This method requires flexibility, creativity and shifts of technology. But how can this new type of information be managed? This is the level where it is worth stepping over from multiple fields to multiple sites, and search for the connection between the sites instead of the comparability of fields. The author of the article provides an interpretive framework for the understanding of participation of East-Central European women in global catering sector at various points of the phenomenon and it contributes to the exploration of the inner dynamics and logics. In course of the ever-expanding field research integrating new sites it may become clear that the key to understand the phenomenon is not to be detected in locally available contexts, but, rather, in the study of the various aspects of the phenomenon. Data got into context due to glancing at the process at several sites. The sites formed context for one another to deepen understanding.