ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates the utility of ethnographic research methods to industrial relations in the developing world. It makes use of an ethnographic account of an occupational community based around the lock manufacturing industry in England, plus a number of ethnographically-informed industrial relations accounts from the developing world. The chapter illustrates the vitality and richness of the ethnographic method, connecting such accounts to emergent themes, which have relevance for industrial relations in the developing world and attempting to break down the existing binarism which rigidly separates developed and developing world contexts. It discusses the ethnographic material and presents some examples of lock industry ethnographies, exploring the experience of work from both the perspective of an ethnographic observer and then from the perspective of two of the assembly line workers themselves. It focuses on the relationships, interactions, memories and histories that make up industrial relations, brought alive on the page through the discourse of those involved.
