Queue-munity engagement: Collaborative Event Ethnography at the Antiques Roadshow in Kent

Abstract

Using Collaborative Event Ethnography as a research method, a team of 21 researchers conducted fieldwork at the Antiques Roadshow in Ightham Mote, Kent. This article reflects on the experience of queuing at the event and how it was experienced and discussed by researchers and participants. Drawing upon Mol, the article approaches the practice of queuing as involving an inherent multiplicity of often contradictory experiences through which idealised, Second World War-related understandings of British queuing practice are simultaneously confirmed and challenged. Through multiple participants viewing the queue from within and outside we were able to capture the processes of community-building, curation, management, rule-maintenance and rule-bending within the social life of the queue. In demonstrating this multiplicity Collaborative Event Ethnography is shown to be an excellent research tool for capturing short-term, large-scale events while also highlighting the simultaneous simplicity and complexity of social interactions and social norms within queues.