Observational approaches have been recognized as important qualitative methods in social sciences, but the discourse about their importance and applicability in policy research is fragmented. In the available case studies, observation has been emphasized over participation, despite that the limitations of participant observation – especially from an ontological and epistemological perspective – were frequently highlighted. Only a handful of articles are available that engage with other forms of observation, especially observant participation and shadowing. To address this gap, drawing on the existing examples, as well as on ethnographic fieldwork experience, this paper aims to assess the benefits, limitations and applicability of observational approaches in the organisational context. Based on the ethnographic research at the European Commission as part of my doctoral research, I discuss the issues emerging from the application of participant observation, and how observant participation and shadowing could be a better fit for interpretive policy studies. The introduction provides an overview of the discourse on the scope and scale of participation in ethnographic methods, by discussing the various forms of participant observation, shadowing, and observant participation. Next, I discuss three theoretical and pragmatic points based on empirical fieldwork. First, I reflect on the questions of access and plannability of the observational research. Second, I discuss the roles, positionality and positioning of the researcher. Third, I thematise questions and issues related to the use of observational data, from note-taking and coding to ethical considerations. In the concluding remarks, I argue that observant participation and shadowing should be recognized as important methods of interpretive policy research.

This paper explored the nature of ES in the Philippines by examining research outputs produced by faculty and students in the European Studies Program of the Ateneo de Manila University. Underpinned by the assumption that products of scholarly labor are “fabricated” (Knorr-Cetina, 1981), this study used both the Discourse Historical Approach and ethnographic data to examine the relationship between texts and the context in which they are produced. The findings indicated that: (1) studies tended to have the Philippines as geographic focus; (2) researchers explored a variety of topics and data sources; and (3) Europe tended to be moderately prominent in the research projects. The three broad findings indicate the nature of ES research in the Ateneo de Manila University. However, the paper went beyond examining patterns in the text, and explored how the data were shaped by the social environment in which they were produced. It was argued that research outputs were shaped by factors including the relative ease of gathering primary data in the Philippines, the multidisciplinary character of the Ateneo de Manila’s European Studies Program, and the ambiguity inherent in the field of ES as a whole.

In this communication, I will discuss how ‘practice theories’ turn to be a promising framework to analyze and make sense of EU foreign policy through my PhD research on the EU’s external action in postrevolutionary Egypt. Based on the legacy of the ‘practice turn’ in IR, I conceive EU politics as the result of many interweaving practices involving a wide range of EU and non-EU actors performing in a particular context. Studying practices as a unit of analysis involves looking at their artefacts as well as their embodied meanings and narratives. Hence, I suggest that they constitute an innovative approach to explain the EU external action in Egypt today in light of the 2011 uprisings. The uprisings displayed the limits of the EU’s southern neighborhood policy in supporting sustainable socioeconomic development and democracy. Therefore, the EU committed to revise its external action based on the demands of the revolutionaries. In the following years however, the existing literature concluded on ‘continuity with the past’ in the EU’s approach toward the Mediterranean. Nonetheless, I notice that the reasons behind this absence of change remain unclear in the literature. EU-Egypt relations are characterized by many stakes in the field of security (including counterterrorism and migration), trade and liberal democracy. There is a gap in EU and Mediterranean studies on how all these stakes interrelate with, reinforce and undermine each other and how they influence the EU external action over time. It is also under-investigated how the EU considered and integrated the revolutionaries and the Egyptian government’s demands in its external action. This PhD research addresses this ‘continuity’ by looking at the underlying practices. Its main objective is to identify the main practices behind EU-Egypt relations and analyzing how they interact with each other, what stakes they embody and what narratives they entail. I argue that practices, through their ability to reproduce, reinforce or reshape the social order in which they evolve, can yield power and influence the decision-making process. My research thus seeks to reconstruct EU-Egypt relations since the 2011 uprisings until today through their inherent practices. The communication will take place after a six-month field work in Brussels (Jan-Jun 2023) and in prelude of a six-month field work in Cairo. I will present how the research unfolds based on practice theories: its theoretical and methodological implications and my first observations from the field.

The processes of peace making, mediation, and compromise are complex for a country visited by violence. This article explores whether the European Union would impose its own values (human and individual rights), or settle for viable solutions while aiming to encourage the Afghan government to embrace diplomacy. The EU’s policy advice documents show a commitment to building support according to the western formats. This article investigates the central question ‘regarding whether opportunities exist “in” and “through” practice when EU’s officials’ practical sense makes diplomacy the self-evident way to interact with Afghanistan’ by applying the practice approach to the EU embroiled in Afghanistan after August 2021. It considers diplomacy as a development connected to social relations, and views micro-level dynamics as the site within which to construct diplomacy. It builds on a research design framed by the theoretical concepts offered by the practice approach and by the three parameters that shape the analytical methodology supporting a paradigm shift for the EU. The research agenda also includes insights into developments in Afghanistan, after August 2021, because these shape the knowledge base necessary for the EU to meditate on how to change its approach towards dealing with Afghanistan under the Taliban. As a supplementary to the literature on practice approaches and its implications for scholars interested in European studies, this empirical investigation argues that the EU’s diplomatic practices should be represented by socially meaningful patterns of action if the EU aims to impact on other countries in global politics, such as in this instance of seeking to re-orient events in Afghanistan. The primary sources of the European Parliament and Parliamentarian debates are central in supporting this argumentation.