Doing ethnography at the intersection of grassroots and research labour: new fieldwork imageries for critical sociolinguistic engagements

Abstract In this article, we propose to rethink some of the ethnographic images widely used in critical sociolinguistic studies to refer to and make sense of the fieldwork pace. We do so by bringing into dialogue our two ethnographic research experiences within grassroots initiatives, arguing that the nature of these research sites and the political interweaving that ethnographers might experience there call for a re-consideration of the epistemology that underlies the more usual understanding of fieldwork within critical sociolinguistics. In this vein, we revisit key moments of our research processes (field entrance and exit, data gathering and the dissemination of results), and suggest alternative re-readings of them. In doing so, we wish to engage and contribute to a discussion on the possibilities of re-situating the ethnographic sociolinguistic gaze towards less investigated sites, and ultimately to suggest a broader critical horizon.