Since 2010, Rebecca Gruby has been working with an interdisciplinary team of social scientists to study global environmental governance through a methodology we developed called collaborative event ethnography (CEE). Through CEE, we approach international meetings as field sites where we can directly observe and, at times, participate in the process of making global environmental governance. In this sense, we are applying the tools of traditional ethnography – cultural immersion, thick description, participant observation, etc. – to study global politics and governance processes. And we do it as a team. Using CEE, we work under a shared analytical framework to coordinate data collection across international events that are too large and multi-faceted for individual researchers working alone. We also work together to analyze our data, challenging and adding nuance to our individual observations to develop a collective understanding that captures our diverse experiences across the event.
As one of the project leads, Rebecca Gruby has participated in CEE at four events beginning in 2010. Her contributions have focused on:
- How state and non-state actors influence global decision-making
- How particular ideas about conservation gain traction while others do not
- How the processes and politics of global environmental governance influence its outcomes
- The role of international conferences in configuring a global field of marine biodiversity conservation
- The CEE methodology itself
Please see our project website for additional information: https://sites.duke.edu/ceeproject/.
Select publications
Gray, N., Corson, C., Campbell, L. Wilshusen, P., Gruby, R.L., Hagerman, S. 2020. Doing Strong Collaborative Fieldwork in Human Geography. Geographical Review, 110 (1-2), 117-132
Corson, C., Gruby, R.L., Witter, R., Hagerman, S., Suarez, D., Greenberg, S., Bourque, M.,.Gray, N., & Campbell, L.M. (2014) Everyone’s solution? Defining and redefining protected areas at the Convention on Biological Diversity. Conservation and Society 12(2): 190-202.
Gruby, R.L., & Campbell, L.M. (2013) Scalar Politics and the Region: Strategies for Transcending Pacific Island ‘Smallness’ on a Global Environmental Governance Stage. Environment and Planning A 45(9):2046-2063.
