Aumais, N. et Germain, O. (2021). Shadowing as a Liminal Space: A Relational View. Dans S.N.

Just, A. Risberg et F. Villesèche (dir.). The Routledge Companion to Organizational Diversity

Research Methods. Routledge.

SHADOWING AS A LIMINAL SPACE: A RELATIONAL VIEWiii

Nancy Aumais
Assistant Professor

Olivier Germain
Professor

University of Quebec in Montreal Business School (ESG-UQÀM)

Abstract
This chapter draws on a PhD study of identity construction processes of recently appointed
managers in a Canadian organization to explore the relational hyphen spaces (Cunliffe &
Karunanayake, 2013; Fine, 1994) between the researcher (one of the authors, Nancy) and the
participants to the study. The data was collected using shadowing, a technique that involves closely
following a member of an organization in her or his daily activities (McDonald, 2005), which is
useful to access emerging practice in real time and space (Czarniawska, 2007). Recent studies
frame shadowing data as an intersubjective construct in which both researcher and participant
actively participate and in which interaction is central (Bruni, Gherardi, & Poggio, 2005; Gill,
2011). Fine (1994) argues for an examination of research processes that attends to the lived
experiences of participants. Pullen (2006) highlights the fact that researchers do not merely perform
research but also (re)produce themselves in doing so and criticizes the absence of such discussion
in most research accounts. To address this, we propose to consider shadowing as liminal space(s),
and we explore what happens in transition, in between and in/at the margins of the institutional
spaces of shadowee and researcher (Nancy). The paper’s contribution is twofold: it provides input

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on shadowing’s possibilities for exploring the interactional dynamics of hyphens spaces, and it
addresses some of the ethical issues that the method entails.

Keywords
Shadowing, Identity work, Liminality, Hyphens

Introduction
Rada and I are walking to a meeting. She whispers that she didn’t sleep well and gestures
towards her belly with a painful expression. I understand she doesn’t feel well and that its
related to her being pregnant. She recently learned that she was and shared the news with
me but hasn’t announced it at the office yet (hence the discretion, walking around in the
office). We arrive at the meeting, where several colleagues are already seating, informally
chatting. I have met all of them previously, except for one who exclaims, pointing to me,
looking surprised “who is she?!” to which another colleague responds” she’s our scholar,
you moron!” Everybody laughs, including me. We sit and the meeting starts, without further
introductions.

In recent years, there have been calls to engage with new ways of studying the organization,
challenge academic orthodoxies and develop alternative methods to access emerging practices and
changing realities (Czarniawska, 2007). Answering these calls, the use of shadowing, an
ethnography-inspired technique that involves a researcher closely following a member of an
organization in his or her daily activities over an extended period of time, is becoming increasingly
popular in organization studies (McDonald, 2005) because it allows access to emerging practice in
real time and space (Czarniawska, 2007).

This chapter draws on Nancy’s PhD study of the various ways in which managers’ identities are
constructed and regulated within discourse and practices in daily interactions. To collect the
material presented here, she shadowed three recently appointed managers in a Canadian
organization for two days a week for a total of eight months. Recent studies frame shadowing data
as an intersubjective construct in which both researcher and participant actively participate, and in

2
which interaction is central (Bruni et al., 2005; Gill, 2011). Fine (1994) argues for a more reflexive
examination of research processes and ethics that attends to the lived experiences of participants:
“[T]o see how these ‘relations between’ get us ‘better’ data, limit what we feel free to say, expand
our minds and constrict our mouths, engage us in intimacy and seduce us into complicity, make us
quick to interpret and hesitant to write” (Fine, 1994, p. 72). Pullen (2006) also highlights the fact
that researchers do not merely perform research but also (re)produce themselves in doing so and
criticizes the absence of such discussion in most research accounts. In an attempt to address and
explore the relational hyphen spaces (Cunliffe & Karunanayake, 2013; Fine, 1994) between
researcher (Nancy) and participants, we propose to consider shadowing as liminal space(s) (Turner,
1967; van Gennep, 1960), and we take up an exploration of the identity relations happening in
those spaces. We identify multiple spaces in transition, in between and in/at the margins of the
institutional spaces of shadowee and researcher. We thus argue that informal and private moments
that unfold in liminal spaces constitute an integral part of the shadowing process and are therefore
not to be considered “biases” to reduce.

The contribution of this chapter is twofold: First, we provide input on shadowing’s possibilities as
a method that is still relatively underutilized to explore the processes that are at play in the
interactional dynamics by which the “other” influences self-understanding and through which
realities, meanings, and selves were negotiated through identity work (Sveningsson & Alvesson,
2003; Watson, 2008). Second, we address some of the ethical issues that the method entails. The
chapter is structured as follows: We begin by setting the empirical and theoretical context. We then
examine excerpts from the field to discuss implications of the relational view of shadowing, and
explore some of the possibilities that emerge from the use of shadowing to explore identity (co-
)construction processes in the hyphen spaces, and, finally, we discuss some of the challenges and
ethical issues that the method entails.

Shadowing as embodied, reflexive methodology

As a research technique, shadowing is well suited to study organizing in real pace and place(s)
(Czarniawska, 2014), setting it apart from other qualitative methods. Classic studies using
shadowing within various social science traditions include, for example, the work of Wolcott

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(1973), who has coined the term based on the nickname he was given by the people he was
observing. Other classic examples include Mintzberg (1970) and Perlow (1998) and more recent
examples can now be found in organization studies (e.g., Czarniawska, 2007; McDonald, 2005;
Noordegraaf, 2000, 2014). Shadowing is particularly useful because it allows access to
unconscious practices, conversations, and trivial routines that are otherwise inaccessible and often
rely on tacit knowledge that is difficult to express verbally (Bruni et al., 2005). The literature on
shadowing raises various issues such as difficult access and ethical considerations and discusses
the influence of the researcher on data (Czarniawska, 2014; Gill, Barbour, & Dean, 2014; Groleau,
2013; Johnson, 2014; Vásquez, 2013). The speed at which shadowing data is generated also means
that researchers gather very large amounts of data, leading to data management challenges
(McDonald & Simpson, 2014). As scholars, we are more prepared for these technical and cognitive
challenges but less accustomed to dealing with the embodied, relational, and emotional side of
using shadowing.

There is a great deal of debate over what is and what is not participant observation and whether
shadowing is to be considered participant observation or not. Czarniawska (2014) adopted a
pragmatic definition of “participant observation” that implies the observers doing the same things
as the people they follow. The practice of ethnography, and therefore of shadowing, as a particular
ethnographic tool, is a relational game that engages both subjectivity and reflexivity of the
researcher, which means that she needs to demonstrate critical awareness, self-analysis, and self-
disclosure, as several authors have highlighted (Gill, 2011; Rouleau, 2013). Consequently, as van
Maanen (2011) states “today, most worthy ethnographies provide at least some meditations on the
conditions of their production” (p. 232) and most ethnographic researchers recognize themselves
as rhetoricians who are part of a social and political context (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2010).

Indeed, the description of the scenes we chose to illustrate the liminal nature of shadowing will
show that the outsider status gradually evolved to a more insider status which has had an impact
on the type of data that was collected; it became more intimate in nature as the relationship evolved
and trust was built. We also recognize that the participant or non-participant status might not always
be within the researcher’s control as she is being invited to participate, asked for advice, for
opinion, for evaluation, and alternatively positioned as an outsider, insider, confident, intruder,

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mirror, etc.iii This highlights the need for more nuance, for moving past the participant/non-
participant dichotomy and for recognition of the entangling of “Self” (researcher) and Other
(participants) (Fine, 1994).

Theoretical context: exploring identity relations

Identity is our individual, subjective interpretations of who we are, based on socio‐demographic
categories, roles, personal characteristic, and group membership. Social psychology makes a
distinction between personal identity (self-categories, distinction between “me” and “you”) and
social identity (categorizing oneself / being categorized by others) (Ashforth & Mael, 1989). Self‐
understanding is tied to organizational, occupational, and role identities (Dutton, Roberts, &
Bednar, 2010) and is multidimensional and dynamic (Ashforth, Harrison, & Corley, 2008;
Ashforth & Schinoff, 2016; Brown, 2015).

Functionalist approaches naturalize identities into objective entities, conceptualized as fixed, clear-
cut, measurable categories, and reduce individuals to representatives of a social group defined by
a common trait and essential “true” identity (Zanoni, 2003). Many have argued for the need for a
non-positivistic, non-essentialist understanding of identities as socially (re)produced, processual,
in ongoing interactions, and this study is located in critical studies of identity, which conceptualize
identity construction as a dialectic process between structure (via social regulation) and agency
(via identity work). Indeed, individuals’ identities are not pre-packaged (Alvesson, Hardy, &
Harley, 2008), nor are individuals put into pre-packaged selves by others once and for all, and
individuals engage, as agents, in identity work (Alvesson & Willmott, 2002; Sveningsson &
Alvesson, 2003; Ashcraft, 2013; Fleming and Sturdy 2011) to construct, maintain and/or disrupt
(multiple) identities, and in doing so, they sometimes challenge inequalities.

Knowledge, experience, and identity are socially constructed in interaction. In some instances, we
can see that knowledge construction is linked to the emergence of a professional identity: The
subject in training (both shadowee, who was newly appointed in a management role and PhD
student, who is a researcher in training) is constructed as a social actor and at the same time is
building knowledge conducive to professional action. In other instances, ambiguities were made

5
visible in the shifting, multiple identities of both researcher and the shadowee (as a woman, as a
student, as a researcher in the making, etc.) during the course of the fieldwork. For example, where
“the detached researcher” or the “confident manager” position was disrupted and where, losing the
professional image for a moment, we shifted to another position: “the mother” or “the woman
discussing with a woman of a similar age, education, and background”. In other interactions, the
feedback was meant to compliment the shadowee’s self-image as a competent, intelligent, well-
meaning woman. In some ways, we validated each other because we served as a kind of mirror to
one another. Other interactions made it possible for participants and researchers to negotiate what
constitutes good practice, good management, good behavior, etc.

We will now discuss some the conceptualization of liminal spaces in sociological and organization
studies and our use of the concept to examine the relational nature or shadowing. The concept of
‘liminal spaces’ is indeed relevant to show how the use of shadowing as a method is not only useful
to study identity work but how it produces identity work in/as liminal spaces.

Liminal spaces
Van Gennep (1960) studied rites of passage and divided them into rites of separation, transition,
and incorporation. Turner (1967) further developed the idea explaining that rites of passage
accompany all changes in place, status, social position, and age. This liminal phase has the
characteristics neither of the previous nor of the following condition, but is defined in relation to
it, in the margins of the usual spaces, the institutional spaces that organize our daily lives.
Organization studies have used the concept of liminality as a framework to study identity
reconstruction (Beech, 2011), dwelling spaces (Shortt, 2015), temporary employees (Garsten,
1999), management consultancy (Czarniawska & Mazza, 2003), and business dinners (Sturdy,
Schwarz, & Spicer, 2006).

That researchers do not merely perform research but also (re)produce themselves in doing so is
rarely discussed and described; discussion on the identity negotiation processes between self and
participant remains highly uncommon (Pullen, 2006). Although this could be said of all research,
it seems especially relevant to a study of identity construction, using a method that entails so much

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interaction. With the intention of exploring those co-construction processes, we propose to consider
shadowing as a liminal space, where things happen in relation to the institutional spaces of
shadowee and researcher, but also in relation to the object of shadowing (its finality in terms of
observation).

In van Gennep’s work, the concept of liminality is mostly located within a temporal dimension
(Shortt, 2015), which is how we chose to use it, as a moment or period of time; a figurative space
in which individuals experience “passages” from one “state” to another. Temporal liminality is
associated with a passing, transitional and temporary condition (Söderlund & Borg, 2018).
Liminality can also be seen as a “space” in which usual social norms dissipate and offer individuals
opportunities to share secrets and speak honestly (Sturdy et al., 2006). Here, it is associated with a
particular place or space that is outside normal contexts, conditions, and everyday routines
(Söderlund & Borg, 2018). In terms of individual identity, when a person has left her or his old
role or identity but has not yet acquired a new one, a transition (liminal space) takes place. This is
ambiguous, since people in this phase have no access to the schemes of classification that normally
indicate everybody’s place and position in a cultural space (Turner, 1967). Liminality is thus a way
of suspending all institutional arrangements and favoring creation and uncertainty with respect to
identity categorization, for example.

Institutional spaces have a purpose and expected performance that are clearly defined: For example,
a classroom is an area with the primary purpose of teaching. Shadowing can be considered an
institutional space because, for example, the conditions of observation and the finality of the
observation (a study on gendered managerial identity) were negotiated and agreed upon in writing.
However, what actually takes place in this space is of a processual and relational nature and the
specific performance cannot be predicted. Moreover, shadowing happens in the margins of the
daily lives of two people, the shadower and the shadowee. Shadowing is here seen here as an
intermediate space with multiple temporalities that suspends the institutional game that is usually
at play between researcher and researched. The frequent crossing of the boundary between
institutional space and liminal space and what is at play at this boundary produces identity and
“otherness” effects and contributes to the actors’ reflexivity. Shadowing, as a process, can, of
course, also be seen as a space that is gradually becoming institutionalized, as rituals are developed

7
and routines are organized between actors (for example, Sturdy et al., 2006 show that the business
dinner is an institutionalized liminal space for consultants). However, our intention here is to show
the variety of space-times that are at play in shadowing as a liminal space, but also the diversity of
consequences on identities and relations.

Following van Gennep (1960), we will argue that the first stages of shadowing are transitional
spaces where rites of passage between actors facilitate transition from a state of exteriority to a
state of availability. We also observe developing spaces at/in the margins of shadowing. For
example, when the actors’ daily lives arise in the observation space, highlighting their full
commitment to the relationship. Finally, we highlight spaces in-between, especially in the
transitions between moments (e.g., meetings, appointments) that seem to articulate reflexivity and
availability in the relationship between shadowee and researcher. Each space reveals a different
mode of engagement to the relationship and the evolution of this engagement, but also an evolution
of the identities that are assigned during the shadowing.

Field study and method

The data presented in this chapter are drawn from a wider study that focused on the various ways
in which managers constructed their identities within discourse and practices in daily interactions.
This study was conducted in 2016 and was based in a public service organization of 20,000
employees in more than 100 different locations in Canada. Individuals work on their identities
through narratives, dialogues, and conversations (Snow & Anderson, 1987), but they also work on
their identity physically through the body (Courpasson & Monties, 2017; Tyler, 2011), office
decoration (Elsbach, 2004), dress (Essers & Benschop, 2007; Humphreys & Brown, 2002) etc.,
hence the need for an observation method like shadowing.

During the course of the fieldwork, Nancy shadowed three recently appointed managers in a
Canadian organization for two days a week for a total of eight months. Although we acknowledge
that identity is always becoming (Thomas & Lindstead, 2002), role transitions and tensions are
known to trigger more intense identity work (Ashforth, 2000; Ibarra & Barbulescu, 2010;
Mègemont & Baubion-Broye, 2001), and so the participants in this study were chosen because they

8
all were going through the transition phase of having been recently appointed to managerial
positions.

Following Czarniawska’s (2014) definition of participant observation, this research would be

considered non-participant observation given the complete outsider status of the researcher when
she arrived in the field. But qualifying the research as “non participant” doesn’t mean that she is to
be considered as a detached, neutral, or objective observer. Cunliffe (2011) argued for the need to
extend the definitions of subjectivism and objectivism to add intersubjectivity into the mix and
recent studies frame the construction of shadowing data as an intersubjective construct in which
both researcher and participant actively participate and in which interaction is central (Bruni et al.,
2005; Gill, 2011). Far from being a neutral, invisible observer, the researcher has a constant
influence on the process in which the data are constituted, and researcher and shadowee influence
each other’s understandings of their shared experience (Bruni et al., 2005; Vásquez, Brummans, &
Groleau, 2012).

The collection of data was facilitated through the compilation of a handwritten field work journal,
documenting the activities observed as they happened, what people said (as much as possible),
what people did, how they interacted, and the physical settings.

In the course of the fieldwork, Nancy reflected on the boundaries of shadowing and what could be
considered acceptable or “valid” material to analyze. Indeed, things were happening during
informal moments or conversations at the margins of the managerial practice, which was the object
of shadowing. These situations seemed to bring out dimensions of identity that where not
necessarily exposed during the mere observation of interactions between shadowees and their
professional interlocutors.

Discussions between the co-authors around situations encountered in the field made us realize the
liminality of some of these situations or moments. What had at first been analyzed as a bias was
eventually considered at the heart of the shadowing process. Based on the literature on liminal
spaces, our analysis allowed us to explore and distinguish varied spaces performing different
identities’ interactions. Nancy’s notes were then subject to qualitative analysis from which key

9
scenes, where specific types of interactions between shadowee and researcher happened, were
analyzed. To do that, we went back to the field journals and identified critical moments that seem
to represent ruptures in the course of the shadowing, where personal conversations happened, or
where the researcher was called upon to intervene, etc. We considered that those moments were
critical with respect to the institutionalized space of shadowing and thus in need for an
interpretation. From the analysis of this list, we build the categories that we present in this chapter.
Excerpts provided here will serve to illustrate three interactional dynamics with different purposes,
through which realities, meanings, and selves were negotiated.

Findings - shadowing as a liminal space

We will now illustrate our use of the notion of liminal space by mapping three different liminal
spaces that arose from a preliminary analysis of the field journals. These spaces rely on different
modes of engagement between the shadowing actors. One stream of process theory, inspired by
Heidegger and re-readings of Dreyfus, has notably placed emphasis on, without opposing them,
different registers of the “relation” of individuals to the world (and spaces) that surrounds them in
the course of action. The mode that can be described as constituting a theoretical detachment, the
“building” mode, when a person is predetermining or anticipating his or her action. This becomes
manifest, particularly in circumstances that disrupt the flow of action or that position the individual
as the analyst who becomes aware of what is happening. The “dwelling” mode, on the other hand,
describes complete engagement of the person who is fully engaged, absorbed, in the course of
action. This mode describes a relationship to the world that is not “thought”, where the world is
primarily experienced through its incorporation in daily activities. “[W]hen we inhabit something,
it is no longer an object for us but becomes part of us and pervades our relation to others in the
world” (Dreyfus, 1990, p. 45). This mode reflects the practices of everyday life in organizations,
including the actions of the peripheral players of those organizations (Chia & Holt, 2006). The
building mode refers to scientific rationality, while the dwelling mode is located in practical reason,
if not a “savage mind” (Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2011). For both modes, the authors acknowledge that
practical activity may become temporarily disrupted, meaning that individuals, interrupted in their
absorbed engagement, are pushed to engage in a mode of deliberation, even if they do not
necessarily become theoretically detached (Tsoukas, 2010).

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Insert Table 12.1 about here

Transitional space
Coaching meeting in a call center. Hilary (shadowee) reviews an employee’s monthly
results with her as I observe. The performance indicators aren’t met so Hilary asks the
employee to explain the gaps and to suggest ways to address them. The employee gets
defensive and the conversation is tense. The employee disagrees with the assessment of her
performance. They finally agree to meet again to listen to the call recordings in order to
better assess the problem. After the employee leaves, Hilary asks me to comment on her
coaching style.

How to interpret this kind of breakdown in the shadowing relation that characterized the earlier
phases of observation, where the shadowee invites the researcher into her world? These moments
relate closely to the manner in which van Gennep (1960) and Turner (1967) characterize liminality
in terms of rites of passage, which allow a full engagement into the shadowing relationship, by
gradually separating from one’s everyday social environment and ways of living. In his original
use, van Gennep (1960) distinguished three phases of a rite of passage: separation (divestiture),
transition (liminality), and incorporation (investiture). Divestiture is necessary for both shadowing
partners to fully engage in the relationship and to undo asymmetries that have unconsciously been
incorporated into the actors’ practices. In the early phases of shadowing, identities from outside of
the shadowing space are still assigned by partners on the basis of perceived differences. In the
previous scene, one is considered the expert who can vertically give her opinion on what is
happening. The other knows she is observed and even maybe unconsciously judged. The
relationship is thus asymmetrically experienced as evidenced by controlled behavior and awareness
of what the other represents in her difference in this moment.

In these transitional moments, the partners are not truly and fully engaged in the relationship but
aware of their differences in terms of identity. They experience a theoretical detachment
relationship (Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2011) to the liminal space of shadowing that is not only

11
subjectively experienced and occupied, but is characterized as a space to be filled. Assigned social
identities, objectified by what is known of the other’s life, temporarily fill the space as well as the
shadowing purposes (as they are understood) which establish a role asymmetry and therefore a
potential power relation. In sum, the shadowing relationship requires reciprocal habituation to
transform into a sort of dwelling place within which identities are no longer assigned or questioned.
The dwelling space reveals identities that are closer to what would be the conduct or ordinary
practice of the shadowee.

In between space
The attributes of liminality are ambiguous, since this condition eludes or slips through the network
of classifications that normally locates states and positions in cultural space (Turner, 1967). A
shadowing day involves various moments of transition, dead time, in-between, on the way, in
between meetings, encounters, and interactions. These moments where bodies are set in movement
or waiting passively are also times where partners express themselves differently: They take stock,
debrief, or spontaneously discuss what has just happened. These moments constitute temporary
breakdowns in the engagement within space (Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2011) where we can see
reflexivity at work. In the course of shadowing, we have thus observed the dynamic evolution in
the engagement of these in-between moments in three stages:

a) Where the researcher is still attributed an outsider posture—the liminal space is used to position
people, to explain situations, generally in politically correct terms, there is a certain need to fill
the space. Söderlund and Borg (2018) define positional liminality as associated with a particular
role and position, predominantly a fixed condition between or beyond organizational
boundaries.
End of a meeting, everybody leaves the room but me and Hilary. Without prompting, she

spontaneously describes the people that were involved in the discussion I have just

witnessed. She explains that the friendly and relaxed atmosphere of the meeting was quite

typical and that her colleagues usually collaborate well with each other. She then briefly

12
 explains the professional history and background of each person and the purpose of the

meeting we just attended.

This scene is similar to the rites of passage that we have described earlier: The shadowee feels the
need to set the scene, to describe characters, and assign biographies and identities because of the
perceived outsider status of the researcher. Again here, the relationship is characterized by
theoretical detachment and building mode: The shadowee, in assigning a role to the researcher,
theorizes the situation that she experienced. Space is therefore not yet invested by the shadowing
relation as both participants remain in an institutionalized relation where roles, practices, and
behaviors are predefined and agreed upon.

b) The shadowee starts to open up, expresses the unspoken, introduces her subjectivity. The
liminal space therefore becomes productive and the researcher starts to understand her better,
to get a sense of her world view.

Following a weekly meeting, she comments on each of her colleagues’ tendency to adhere
or resist the “rules”: “Cindy is the most attached to rules. Lily and Hélène are a little less,
Sarah and Jeff are a little laxer I would say. I personally think that we should apply rules
uniformly and take similar actions to ensure fairness to employees on different teams.”

The second scene illustrates the transition from a building mode to a dwelling mode in the
relationship between partners who invest the space of their subjectivity. The shadowee expresses
her point of view on the people in attendance and guides the researcher’s subjective understanding
of what has just happened. In doing so, she also positions herself as guardian of the rules.

c) The shadowee reveals herself, her feelings, opinions, experiences more directly/with fewer
filters
Following a meeting with colleagues, Hilary expresses her anger and disappointment with
them: “I look at Sarah and how she does 30-minute meetings! The rule is to do 15-minute
meetings! I’m disappointed with … with… I never ever get any recognition! Never, ever.
Nothing. I made an electronic bulletin… Sarah and I fought about it. She got angry at me

13
 because she thinks that we don’t work as a team, that I should have talked to them about
it.”

The third situation highlights the loosening or transformation from a predefined goal of directing
efforts towards expected outcomes of the interactions on the part of the shadowee, to a full
engagement of her subjectivity in the relationship. Identities are not assigned to each partner by the
other, but the partners find themselves not only in a situation of practical availability (dwelling)
but also in a position of deliberate attention which now expresses a capacity to occupy in a singular
and reflective way the space of shadowing. This third type of liminal space (in between) therefore
represents a quasi-intermediate situation. The three scenes we describe reveal the evolution in the
investment of a space that is gradually occupied by the intersubjectivity of the shadowing partners.

In/at the margins

At lunch time, we are informally chatting about our personal lives… At one point, I shared
a situation related to my professional life as a lecturer: A student from another class had
asked me if she could join my group for a lecture. Hilary started asking questions about the
situation (could I accept students for another group without the University knowing? etc.)
and then spontaneously proceeds to give me advice about what I should do.

This type of scene takes place once the rites of passage have allowed the shadowing partners to
fully invest the space of their relationship. Transition spaces like those mentioned above and
moments of theoretical detachment where the other is being assigned her identity from outside
shadowing become less numerous. The margins that take shape in the relationship express a full
and unconscious commitment in the relationship practice (dwelling mode), where partners do not
constantly question each other’s role and identity. Discussing life outside of shadowing expresses
a form of banalization of the relationship that is developing. In this scene, when the shadowee
becomes the researcher’s advisor about the situation she encounters in her daily professional life,
the intrusion of each other’s daily life into the shadowing space makes it possible to undo the
asymmetric relation between them. Here identities are no longer assigned. The temporary
emergence of a space in the margins of shadowing, a space that is fully experienced and occupied

14
by both partners, is not the expression of a static difference between predetermined identities, but
it creates what Jullien (2012) calls an “in-between” (écart) that allows otherness to express itself.
In short, the space spontaneously created on the margin is outside the instituted relations between
the partners who are able to inhabit it fully (dwelling) because their subjectivity can freely meet
each other. It becomes a temporary space created by the intersubjective relation. This space is
almost liminal to liminality insofar as it is located outside of the shadowing relation (for example
a discussion about a movie). It does not serve the transition or “passage” but lives temporarily in a
parallel area to the productive and instituted relationship.

This transitional dwelling place (Shortt, 2015) in the margins of shadowing performs the daily
experienced relationship by making it trivial and convivial. In a certain way, the instituted space
of shadowing has its own conditions of productivity. This space remains finalized by the object of
the encounter (to produce a scientific research) which continues, albeit often unconsciously, to
constrain subjectivities and prohibits a full presence to the other (as a researcher, the need to
maintain “objectivity, for example, and the need to appear competent, to be seen in a positive light,
maybe). But shadowing generates its own temporary liminal spaces where otherness can truly
unfold. The temporary and peripheral nature of these spaces makes it possible to keep the focus on
the central project of the shadowing relationship. Partners sometimes branch off from the
institutional space of shadowing and talk about everydayness and privacy; It has indirect
consequences on the relation. However, in addition to data that is produced there, the regular
crossing of the border between center and periphery of the shadowing relation allows a reflexive
interrogation of the relational positions of the actors, where the frequent crossing of the borders of
the established shadowing space allows the researcher to better understand identity issues at play
in her research.

Concluding discussion
Most of the existing work on identity construction aims at preserving the researcher’s position of
exteriority, implicitly assuming that he or she does not participate in the identity construction
processes that are studied. Functionalist approaches to identity are often based on the identification
of differences which implies the existence of stable identities that can be “revealed”. But if we

15
consider that identity is done and undone in an undetermined manner and that it (un)folds during
the trials encountered in the managerial journey and the daily mundane interactions, we can
examine the interactions between the researcher as other and the participants as they trigger both
participants’ and researcher’s reflexivity and identity work. This allows us to examine the “in-
between” space that is created between researcher and shadowee, not as a set of reciprocal
positions, but as a set of relational positions. If identities and their presupposed differences
disappear gradually as the relationship develops, it is then a question of understanding what this
“in-between” produces and reveals in terms of otherness (Jullien, 2012). Speaking in terms of “in-
between” leads to seeking productivity from distance, unfamiliarity and difference between
individuals (ibid.) instead of prior identification of differences through categorization. Thus, the
researcher serves as a mirror, participating in the construction and deconstruction of the (always)
becoming identity.

We characterize the shadowee-researcher relationship in terms of liminality (Turner, 1967; van

Gennep, 1960), a transitional space at the frontiers of prosaic spaces, in which things happen in
terms of identity (re)production. This takes on its full meaning in the context of the continuous
construction of identities, a process that produces a transitional (liminal) space towards something
else that remains undetermined. The actors’ relationship, seen in terms of liminality, suspends the
norms, symbols, and usages of everyday life to produce otherness. What is interesting, then, is the
way in which what happens in the liminal space challenges what happens in the shadowee’s
ordinary space. More specifically, we explored the relationship between intersubjectivity,
liminality, and reflexivity within the practice of shadowing (see Table 12.2), showing that
liminality allows reflexivity and intersubjectivity to unfold with undirect and silent effects on
identities and on the research results. Moments of liminality are the main engine of reflexivity for
both actors in the shadowing relation. Remaining focused on the purposeful product of the method
may result in a form of essentialization of behaviors and actors where the researcher is seen as an
objective observer concerned about biases. We argue that the distance between the institutionalized
space and the liminal space produces various kinds of effects emerging from various levels of
engagement with the world. If transitional spaces work on the ability to gradually get rid of
purposeful behaviors and reified identities because of active self-consciousness, margin spaces
deploy effects with respect to otherness and creativity made possible by a full availability and

16
engagement of partners in the relation. The temporary nature of liminal spaces prevents the
shadowing relation from institutionalizing and losing its exploratory power.

The practice of shadowing entails specific challenges and ethical issues, especially when it is used
for studying identity construction processes, and we would like to conclude this chapter with a
brief discussion of them. Of course, there is the difficulties in negotiating access to the research
field (Czarniawska, 2007, Vásquez, 2013) because organizations often resist the idea of welcoming
an outsider and giving them unrestricted access to meetings and informal conversations for an
extended period of time (Martin, 2003, Samra-Fredericks, 2010). It is well known that shadowing
entails an additional burden for participants compared to other methods because of its intrusive and
prolonged nature (Vásquez, 2013), and this also raises various ethical issues. For example: Which
identities are involved? Who decides what gets described and how? How are the categories
constructed? Which identities are revealed and why? Shadowing participants and their daily
interactions means that other people, who did not necessarily agree to be observed in advance, will
be observed. These people may have felt forced to be observed or have been afraid to be judged by
refusing. To avoid this situation as much as possible, the researcher withdrew in the beginning of
any encounter to allow the person being followed to address the issue and to explain that the
researcher could be asked to leave at any time. It only happened twice during the shadowing period
that lasted eight months in total that somebody asked the researcher to leave.

How can researchers faithfully render the views of the “natives”, or, in this case, of their self-
transformation or identity work? Or, as Czarniawska (2014) puts it “advance their own views,
neither surrendering them to the views received nor asserting their supremacy, but simply adding
to the views from the field”? This is no easy feat. In this case, to avoid projecting categories inspired
by literature and also to try to avoid imposing an image of the participants via a discourse that
claims to describe them, the participants were presented with the structure of data during informal
meetings as well as our main interpretations and these were discussed (and sometimes changed or
completed when the proposed meanings did not quite correspond to the participant’s experience,
affect, or interpretation).

17
As researchers, we are never fully detached from our objects of study, but actively involved in a
relational dynamic of identity formation (of the self and other). Far from being seen as a limit, this
can be seen as a strength and should even be considered part of the research objective, as rich
“data” can emerge of this involvement in a relationship.

Despite its challenges, some of which we have discussed here, the use of shadowing, and more
specifically of a relational approach to shadowing, lead to a sort of disappearance of the selves—
shadowee and researcher—to highlight what otherness is produced. It allowed us to move away
from an over-self-interrogation of the researcher’s relation with the shadowee. Here, “I” and “I”
are not that important but participate in an “in-between”—the shadowing—whose indeterminate
consequences remain to be further explored.

Table 12.1 – Contrasting a building and dwelling epistemology

Building worldview Dwelling worldview

Actors are self-conscious, intentional and Actors are non-deliberate, relationally

self-motivated constituted nexus of social activities

Actions are guided by predefined goals Actions are directed towards overcoming
directing efforts towards outcomes – immediate impediment – purposive
purposeful action practical coping

Consistency of action is assumed to be

Consistency of action is assumed to be
ordered by modus operandi – an
ordered by deliberate intent
internalized disposition

Source: Chia and Rasche (2010, p. 39), adapted from Chia and Holt (2006, p. 644).

18
Table 12.2 – shadowing as a liminal space

Transitional In-between At/in the margins

spaces spaces spaces

Before/after In between Beside

Reflexivity
What is emerging from the Conviviality and
Rites of passage
performed back and forth accommodation
between spaces
Temporary,
Assigned identity processual identity Otherness relationship

Relationship to Focus on difference Disappearance of Creative gap

other the selves
Asymmetry Asymmetry
between actors Shadowing-specific reduction/reversal
relationship
Temporary
Dwelling mode
Building mode breakdowns in
Engagement mode
actor’s engagement
in liminal space Practical engagement in
Thematic with the world
the shadowing
awareness
relationship
Deliberate attention

19
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i
This paper is the result of a collaborative effort by the authors whose names appear in alphabetical order.
ii
A first draft of this chapter was presented at the ‘Diverse organizing / organizational diversity – Methodological
questions and activist practices’ workshop at Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark in May 2017.
The authors would like to thank Professor Alison Pullen, Professor Sine Nørholm Just as well the anonymous
reviewer for the invaluable questions and comments they provided that have helped develop this chapter.
iii
In the course of the fieldwork, participants or people interacting with them have explicitly (mostly) or implicitly
(occasionally) attributed the following positions to the researcher: friend, audience, scholar, lapdog, coach,
accomplice, executives’ representant, stranger, intruder, expert, invisible, observant, observed, shadow, scientist,
spy, twin, witness, academic, conscience, student, mirror…

24