Participant observation, 58 market days, 62 traders

Anthropology research poster example

Fourteen months of participant observation at a weekly produce market, laid out as an A0 portrait board in a journal style two column grid. The board treats ethnography the way a journal does: abstract, site, method, findings and discussion, with the counts a reader can check.

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SU
Who holds a pitch? Fourteen months of fieldwork at a weekly produce market
I. Baumgartner ¹
1 Department of Anthropology, Stonebridge University
Abstract
A weekly produce market looks like a place where anyone with stock can trade, and the council that runs this one describes it that way in its own literature. Fourteen months of participant observation across 58 market days, with 31 recorded interviews among the 62 traders who worked the site, shows something closer to a tenancy system. Pitches are inherited, lent and returned rather than allocated: 29 of the 62 traders took over a pitch from a relative or a former employer, and the seven pitches nearest the main entrance had not changed hands in eleven years. Newcomers enter at the far end, trade for two or three seasons and either leave or wait for a pitch nearer the gate. The formal rule, a monthly ballot, is used by everyone to confirm arrangements that were already made in the car park. This is not a failure of the rule. It is what the rule is for, and the traders describe it without embarrassment as the way a market keeps people who know how to stand in the cold and sell wet spinach in July.
The site and the question
The market runs one morning a week on a council car park, has done so for thirty one years, and holds 62 registered pitches of which 54 to 58 are worked in any given week. The council allocates pitches by a monthly ballot open to any registered trader, and publishes that ballot as evidence that the market is open. The question this fieldwork asks is what actually determines who stands where, and whether the ballot describes the process or decorates it. Fourteen months was chosen rather than a single season because pitch turnover is seasonal: the two months after Christmas are when traders leave, and a study that runs from spring to autumn never sees a handover. Asking the question this way also avoids a trap common to market ethnography, which is to treat the formal rule as the object of study and the traders as people who either follow it or break it. Here the rule and the practice are treated as one system and the traders are the ones who explain how it works. The council gave access to eleven years of ballot results and pitch registers on the condition that no trader be named, which is the reason every trader in this account is described by tenure and position rather than by name or by what they sell.
METHODS
Fieldwork. Fourteen months of participant observation, on 58 of a possible 61 market days, arriving with the traders at setup rather than with the customers.
Role. The researcher worked unpaid on three pitches across the period with the traders written consent, which is how the handovers were observed as they happened.
Interviews. Thirty one recorded interviews with traders, 24 of which covered the history of that trader own pitch back to the person who held it before them.
Records. Eleven years of council ballot results and pitch registers, supplied on condition that no trader is named, read against the layout observed each week.
Analysis. A pitch history built trader by trader from interviews and observation, then set against the ballot record year by year to see where the two disagree.
PARTICIPANT FLOW
Traders on the council register
74
Not trading during fieldwork
12
Observed across 58 market days
62
Not eligible or declined an interview
31
Recorded interviews completed
31
Interviews covering pitch history
24
n
A
B
C
D
05101520
Figure 1. Traders by years on the market: A under 2 years, B 2 to 5, C 6 to 10, D over 10. All 62 observed.
Source: pitch histories and council register, fourteen months of fieldwork.
Findings
Inheritance. Twenty nine of the 62 traders took their pitch over from a relative, a former employer or a trader who was leaving and chose a successor. In every one of those 29 cases the handover was settled before the ballot that formally granted it. Position. The seven pitches between the entrance and the coffee van have been held by the same five families for eleven years, the full span of the council record. Traders call that stretch the front and describe getting there as a matter of waiting rather than of bidding. Entry. All 14 traders with under two years on the site work the far end, past the point where Saturday foot traffic thins, and nine of them said in interview that they expected to leave within two seasons unless a front pitch came up. Tenure. The distribution is not a smooth curve. Nineteen traders have more than ten years and 14 have under two, with a thin middle of 29, which is the shape a system produces when it keeps people who get past the first two winters and loses almost everyone who does not. Ballot records. Across eleven years the ballot granted 118 pitch allocations, and in 104 of them the trader who won the pitch was already trading beside it, working for its previous holder, or named by that holder as the person taking over. Nine of the remaining 14 went to traders who lasted under a year.
Discussion
The ballot is not a sham and the traders do not describe it as one. It is a ratification device: it converts an arrangement that already has the agreement of the people either side of the pitch into something the council can write down and defend. That distinction matters for policy, because a council that reads its own ballot as an allocation mechanism will keep answering complaints about access with reforms to the ballot, and the ballot is not where access is decided. Two limits should be read with these findings. The first is the single site. Fourteen months at one market cannot say whether the same pattern holds at a market with shorter licences or a waiting list, and the council register for this site is unusually complete. The second is the researcher position: working three pitches gave access to handovers as they happened, but the three traders who took the researcher on were all long tenure, and the account of how the front works is therefore told largely by people who are already standing in it. Newcomers were interviewed separately for that reason, and their account of the same system is markedly less comfortable than the one the front gives.
1.Halloway, R. (2025) Ratification devices: formal rules and informal tenure in urban markets. Journal of Economic Anthropology, 33(2), 145 to 170.
2.Baumgartner, I. and Sosa, D. (2024) Working the pitch: participation and access in market fieldwork. Fieldwork Practice, 11(3), 210 to 228.

Block by block

What each block on the board is for, in the order a reader walks it.

Title band, one author and a QR code
The title asks who holds a pitch and answers with the method: fourteen months of fieldwork at a weekly produce market. A single author and department sit under it, with a QR code at the foot of the board.
Abstract
A wide block across both columns: 58 market days, 31 interviews, 62 traders, and the finding that 29 of them took over a pitch from a relative or former employer while the seven pitches nearest the entrance have not changed hands in eleven years.
The site and the question
Sixty two registered pitches on a council car park, 54 to 58 worked in any week, allocated by a monthly ballot the council publishes as evidence the market is open. The question is whether the ballot describes the process or decorates it.
Methods as a labelled protocol
Five entries covering the fourteen month fieldwork period, the unpaid work on three pitches with the traders consent, the 31 recorded interviews of which 24 covered pitch history, eleven years of council records, and how pitch histories were built and compared.
Sampling flow
Seventy four traders on the council register, 12 not trading during fieldwork, 62 observed across 58 market days, 31 not eligible or declining an interview, 31 recorded interviews completed and 24 covering the history of that pitch.
Findings and figure
Four findings under one heading: inheritance in 29 of 62 cases, position with the front seven held by five families, entry at the far end for all 14 newcomers, and a tenure distribution with a thin middle. The figure bands the 62 traders by years on the market.
Discussion and references
The ballot is read as a ratification device rather than an allocation mechanism, with the policy consequence spelled out. Two limits close the block: one site, and an account of the front told largely by the people standing in it. Two numbered references follow.

What makes this board work

The fieldwork is counted

Fifty eight of a possible 61 market days, 62 traders, 31 recorded interviews and 24 pitch histories. Ethnographic posters usually describe a duration; this one gives a denominator for every claim on the board.

The archive is used against the practice

Eleven years of ballot records show 104 of 118 allocations going to somebody already beside the pitch. Setting the formal record against the observed practice is what turns a description into an argument.

The researcher position is on the board

The discussion states that the three traders who took the researcher on were all long tenure, and that newcomers were interviewed separately for that reason. That admission is what makes the rest of the account credible.

Questions people ask

What goes on an anthropology research poster?

The site, the duration and intensity of fieldwork, how people were sampled and how many, what was recorded, the findings with the counts behind them, and the researcher position. A board that gives a duration without a denominator gives a reviewer nothing to hold on to.

Can qualitative fieldwork use a flow diagram?

Yes, and it usually should. This board shows 74 traders on the register, 12 not trading during fieldwork, 62 observed, 31 not eligible or declining, 31 interviews and 24 pitch histories. It answers who was left out in five boxes rather than a paragraph.

How much text does a journal style poster hold?

This one runs a little over 2,000 words across abstract, site, method, findings and discussion, and the two column grid is built to carry it. If your material is thinner, choose a layout with fewer and smaller blocks rather than padding the ones you have.

What type size works at a poster session?

Body text here is near 24 pixels on the 1656 by 2340 working canvas, about 12 millimetres printed at A0, which reads at a metre. A two column journal layout carries more words than most, so the type size is the thing to protect when the text runs long.

Portrait or landscape for an anthropology conference?

The call for papers decides it, and many humanities conferences specify A0 portrait. Portrait suits a text heavy two column board like this one. If you are given landscape, move to a layout designed for it rather than rotating a portrait design.

How do I adapt this board to my own fieldwork?

Retype the title and single author block, replace the abstract and site description, change the five method entries, and edit the flow node labels and counts. The figure holds its own categories, so a different tenure banding is a data change rather than a layout change.

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