Approaching the field of ethnography with its various ethical considerations and limitations can be a daunting prospect. The co-authored book Volleyball: An ethnographic drama by Adrian Blackledge and Angela Creese aim to provide a vivid representation of ethnographic research methods intertwined with issues of communication in the world of sport.
While the authors study how the communication process unfolds among the coach and players of a UK volleyball team, they also present metaphorically their unsuccessful interactions with government officials (Act I). Thus, they synthesise both a research report and a performative piece, which results in an alternative way of portraying the complexities of social interaction in multilingual settings. Adopting the principles of ethnographic research in combination with those of drama (for instance, dancing, rhythmic discourse, or simultaneous talk and movement), the authors allegorically illustrate mundane issues of social life in their attempt to move away from the traditional ways of conducting ethnographic research. Hence, their perspective opens new avenues for the future of ethnography.
Inspired by plays, the book is divided into ‘acts’ and ‘scenes’ instead of chapters and sections. Act I extends through three scenes that take place in the same meeting room in the House of Commons among the various stakeholders involved in the project apart from the research team, such as the club coach, the Minister for Sport, Tourism, and Heritage, her Assistant Private Secretary, and a staff from Exercise UK. The three scenes recount the researchers’ attempt to outline the key findings of their project. However, their discursive choices prompt further discussions with the rest of the stakeholders in the room, thus, making the ‘drama’ more evident. Act II takes the readers back to the field, six months prior to the meeting presented in the previous act. Throughout these scenes, the readers are exposed to interactions recorded during trainings (scenes 1–4), as well as a match day (scene 5), and the complexities surrounding effective decision-making and the team's strategic planning. The researchers are also actively involved in the script, thus, illustrating the participatory role that researchers often adopt when conducting ethnographic studies.
Act II, a single scene act, occurs in a meeting room of the researchers’ host institution between them and the club coach. This way, the audience familiarises with a new setting and another aspect of the ethnographic study. During this post-match meeting with the coach, the researchers show him video clips from the match and ask follow-up questions. Matters arising from the multilingual setting when the pressure is high are discussed here. Lastly, Act IV takes us back to the sports hall and begins with pretraining small talk between one of the researchers and some players (scene 1), before moving to coach talk with the players during practice (scene 2). The final scenes (3–5) are taken from a match day and illustrate how the coach designs the team's strategy and how actively the players are involved in this by contributing to the plan or by encouraging their teammates.
