Thomas, Ryan and Hall, Edward and Morgan, Callum and Potrac, Paul (2026) Entangled Positionality: Relational Ethnography and Interconnected Small Worlds in Sports Coaching Research. Ethnography. DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/14661381261465253
Thomas, Ryan and Hall, Edward and Morgan, Callum and Potrac, Paul (2026) Entangled Positionality: Relational Ethnography and Interconnected Small Worlds in Sports Coaching Research. Ethnography. DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/14661381261465253
Thomas, Ryan and Hall, Edward and Morgan, Callum and Potrac, Paul (2026) Entangled Positionality: Relational Ethnography and Interconnected Small Worlds in Sports Coaching Research. Ethnography. DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/14661381261465253
Abstract
This paper develops the concept of entangled positionality as a way of theorising how researcher positionality is constituted across the multiple connected worlds the ethnographer inhabits. Drawing on Crossley’s relational sociology and building on Desmond’s call for relational ethnography, we extend recent scholarship on relational positionality (Bolade-Ogunfodun et al., 2023; Delfino, 2025; Drujon d’Astros et al., 2024) by applying Crossley’s (2011) network-analytic vocabulary to the question of positionality. Through three vignettes drawn from twenty months of longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork in an elite youth football academy, we show how access, disclosure and emotional labour were shaped by sedimented histories of interaction and structural intersections across overlapping small worlds. We argue that positionality is not a property the ethnographer carries into the field, but a configuration of ties produced and sustained across the worlds the ethnographer inhabits. The paper makes three specific contributions. Specifically, it applies Crossley’s (2011) theorising to positionality, it draws analytical attention to the ethnographer’s life beyond the field as structurally connected to the field, and it uses the empirical case of sports coaching research to demonstrate how dense, affective and morally charged occupational worlds make these networked dynamics particularly visible.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Ethnography; Networks; Positionality; Relational Sociology; Small Worlds; Sports Coaching |
| Divisions: | Faculty of Science and Health Faculty of Science and Health > Sport, Rehabilitation and Exercise Sciences, School of |
| SWORD Depositor: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
| Depositing User: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
| Date Deposited: | 26 Jun 2026 11:50 |
| Last Modified: | 26 Jun 2026 11:50 |
| URI: | http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/43455 |
Available files
Filename: Thomas et al (in press).pdf
Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0