A decade of ethnography of the European Parliament: an evolution in the forms of legitimacy construction?

This presentation looks back on a decade of research in and on the European Parliament, discussing the arrival and use of digital technologies in the representative work of MEPs. As highlighted by Daloz, “political representation appears to be deeply rooted in the plural context of which it is merely the outcome” (Daloz, 2010, 287) with two imperatives that may at first appear contradictory: to demonstrate both proximity and eminence. After a quick overview of how the notion of legitimacy is understood, the presentation proposes to address how the technological dimension of parliamentary work challenges the representative work of MEPs and how ethnography can contribute to its exploration. Indeed, “political power is not assembled in the same places as before” (Asdal and Hobaek 2016, 97), or more precisely political power is not only assembled in those places. Technology contributes to fragmenting and distributing the European Parliament space in more than one way and therefore communication technologies can be approached both as a site and a tool in the interest of carrying out a multi-site ethnography which consists of following individuals, groups, organizations across the different settings that make up their everyday social world. Experiences from a field study conducted over ten years in and around the European Parliament illustrate and show the benefits of taking both online and offline activities into account to explore the power structures and actors shaping European democracy and how the deliberative democratic process is thus embodied.