Do You See What I See? Examining a Collaborative Ethnography

Abstract

Although there are increasing examples of collaborative ethnography, there are few explicit reflections on its process. The authors systematically juxtapose their jointly collected but separately recorded observations in a neighborhood recreation center in Chicago to examine points of similarity and difference. They find that collaborative ethnography can be useful for providing a richer description, highlighting perceptual inconsistencies, and recognizing the influence of ethnographers' personal and intellectual backgrounds on the collection and recording of data. The authors' reflexive analysis also illustrates that the choice of collaborators is key for influencing the depth or breadth of the data collected. Finally, they show that there is neither one truth, nor one reality, nor one stable social world to observe.Although many researchers have turned to collaborative ethnography as a way in which to explore a variety of social phenomena, we find that there are few explicit reflections on doing collaborative ethnography or on the systematic juxtaposition of observations, what caused those particular observations, and their possible interpretations. There are many comparative ethnographies or ethnographic monographs that use a team approach. In fact, the comparative and team approaches to ethnography have become quite popular, especially in urban sociology, challenging the research done by the lone ethnographer in his or her exclusive domain (see, e.g., Burawoy et al., 1991;Newman, 1999;Sullivan, 1989;Wilson, 1996). Yet, often these studies are written by one voice (or perhaps two voices) who compiles the data collected by others to offer his or her realist narrative of social life in the setting(s) under study.

‘It’s Just Not Acceptable Any More’: The Erosion of Homophobia and the Softening of Masculinity at an English Sixth Form

“…May and Pattillo-McCoy 2000). We met for data collaboration and interpretation sessions several times daily.…”

Doing digital team ethnography: being there together and digital social data

“…They shared some field visits but most of their observations were done individually. The same was true for May and Pattillo-McCoy's (2000) research as part of the Chicago Comparative Neighbourhood Study (CNS), whereby fieldnotes were also produced individually. Similarly, Schlesinger (2015) and the rest of the team adopted different roles during the fieldwork and the three researchers were seldom together in the field at the same time.…”

Animating the classroom: Pedagogical responses to internationalisation

“…In terms of methodology, our approach to the project is a collaborative auto-ethnography (May and Pattillo-McCoy, 2000) between two academics and a theatre practitioner, which draws on our personal narratives (cf Daskalaki, 2012;Stoudt, 2009), field diaries and conversations about the project. The project presented us with an opportunity to reflect on the liberating experience of fusing drama and teaching, yet it has also left us with conflicting emotions about our experience; a subject which we will return to in the final section of the paper.…”