Doing Ethnography in a Chinese ‘Ghost’ City

This itself is a challenging process which demands an ongoing reflexive examination of positionality. However, there are also external factors which limit access to the field – ones that are often beyond the researcher’s control. Based on ethnographic research for my doctoral dissertation on ghost cities in China, this essay will examine two such factors which problematise access: government surveillance and a ghost city as a field site which defies emplacement. I also reflect on the role of positionality in the field as a potentially both facilitating and hindering data collection, and considerations of how new points of entry can be produced.