Back to the ‘old school’: bicycle messengers, employment and ethnography

Abstract

This article examines issues that arose from a mixed method study of bicycle messengers in the UK that included an ethnographic phase of research in which the researcher worked as a bicycle messenger for pay. The question of dangerous research settings and the subsequent advantages and disadvantages to the research process are discussed in relation to other recent ethnographies. The article then discusses the differences between styles of ethnography that involve danger, with particular reference to Lyng's idea of ‘edgework’, arguing that distinctions between types of ethnography may not be useful. Finally, having discussed these recent ethnographic developments, the article suggests that there ought to be an increase in work-based ethnographies in the Chicago School tradition of Howard Becker and Donald Roy, among others.