Shadowing work from anywhere in the age of digital turn: a method in (e)motion

Purpose The aim of the paper is to discuss the contributions and limitations of using shadowing for studying hybrid work practices, more specifically, “work from anywhere.” Drawing on the ethnographic fieldwork of the first author, we revisit and extend three key characteristics of shadowing: mobility, the researcher-participant relationship and fieldwork duration. Design/methodology/approach The fieldwork was designed in two stages. First, the first author conducted a series of interviews with 56 corporate nomads to identify those who would be relevant to follow and create a relationship of trust with these people, and to elaborate the main themes for the analysis. Then, she followed 8 corporate nomads among the interviewees in various locations, during their remote working times. For this paper, we have focused on this second stage of the research design. Findings Mobilty: Dislocated shadowing understands mobility as the flexibility to make oneself available to shadowees and to “what the situation calls for,” as well as the agility to understand their work practice both offline and online. Research–participant relation: Dislocated shadowing understands the intimate relation between shadowers and shadowees as complicit reflexivity. This allows the shadower to capture not only actions and practices, but also the subject's sensitive and embodied experiences. Continuity and duration: In dislocated shadowing, the shadower ensures continuity in discontinuity by following the trajectories of the shadowees and the narratives they themselves make of their “work from anywhere” on social media platforms. Originality/value The paper offers a renewed conception and application of shadowing, what we coin “dislocated shadowing,” which emphasizes flexibility, diversification of methodological techniques and ongoing negotiation between researcher and participants and proposes to think of shadowing in hybrid fieldwork as a method-in-(e)motion.