ABSTRACT
Th e purpose of this chapter is to present a methodology for investigating the “actual” course of a project, in this case a polar expedition. We are therefore working within the “project as practice” framework (Blomquist, Hällgren, Nilsson, & Söderholm, 2010). Th is system investigates the practices of actors in terms of Bourdieu (1977), that is, practices expressed strictly in situ, and of the Chicago School (i.e., the work of Mead, Blumer, and Strauss), which articulates individual and collective concerns from an “interactionist” standpoint. By attempting to point out the collective action of organizing in its full actualization, this observatory follows roughly that used by Weick (2003). We investigate organizing and study the conditions through which it occurs by attempting to resolve the problems associated with the study of the activity itself, as well as considering the individual and collective dimensions of the organizational dynamic. In the words of Karl Weick (2003), we must try to understand “how organizational life unfolds,” specifi cally in situ. How do the
actors, individually and collectively, construct meaning for their actions, and what organizational dynamics are used? While classic methodology focuses primarily on “ways of saying” (Hlady Rispal, 2002), the qualitative methodology proposed here belongs to a new approach that focuses on “ways of doing” ( Rix-Lièvre & Lièvre, 2009).
