Be their guest, not their confidant. Beyond interviews: observing the financial workplace
(2026) 2026 SASE Bordeaux — Location: Bordeaux (1.July.2026)
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- Abstract
- Observation does not occupy the place it deserves in contemporary critical research in finance. In their own ways, international political economy, social studies of finance, and financial geography have turned away from this method of inquiry, generally in favor of semi-structured interviews. After establishing this diagnosis based on an overview of the literature, this article highlights the dangers of this situation by pointing out the limitations of interviews. More specifically, based on field experiences from the financial world, it identifies three types of empirical material to which interviews do not give access-the inadmissible, the unconscious, and the unspeakable-, demonstrating how observing markets professionals in their workplace can enable us to overcome these limitations. Not with the aim of substituting the eye for the ear, but rather to combine these two methodological approaches through "ethnographic interviews." The current rise of financial geography could support this proposal: space would then no longer be just an object to be reintegrated into financial research, but also a way of looking at-and criticizing-this very particular social world.
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Citations
Duterme, T. (2026). Be their guest, not their confidant. Beyond interviews: observing the financial workplace. 2026 SASE Bordeaux, Bordeaux. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/278744