Chapter Introduction

Overview & Synopsis

This book considers the challenges posed by fieldwork in centres of power to researchers in the social sciences, with a focus on deliberative assemblies. It includes work by an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars united around a common interest in producing complementary knowledge about today’s political institutions based on qualitative approaches. The chapters feature various case studies on specific issues that arose from the authors’ fieldwork, as well as broader theoretical syntheses. The contributors offer some practical tools and solutions for others who would like to engage in this type of research, given the difficulties and complexities of doing fieldwork in centres of power and the lack of methodological resources currently available. The volume is valuable reading for anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists and others with an interest in the ethnography of politics.