Conference Agenda

Ethnographic research and writing are often considered the work of lone academics, writing for their particular fields and academic journals. While this view of ethnographic research has been changing (Beach et al., 2018; Eisenhart, 2018; Hammersley & Atkinson, 2019) over the past few decades with growing popularity of participatory, critical, and collaborative approaches and technological advancements (Beneito-Montagut et al., 2017) for dissemination of knowledge on social media, blogs, newsletters, video, etc., most ethnographic data collection and analysis still occurs by one ethnographer. As ethnography expands across disciplines within academia and into the varied industries and organizations (e.g., EPIC, 2024), researchers and program leaders have begun exploring how to leverage different resources and people from varied backgrounds in generating ethnographic data and insights relevant to the multiple stakeholders. In this presentation we draw on two different projects across two countries and disciplinary fields to share the processes and contributions of collaborative construction of ethnographic data and insights.

The first project comes from an online Student Fellows program in the field of invention education. Three experienced ethnographers developed a six-week program for undergraduate students from varied disciplines to learn about and conduct an ethnographic study. The eight undergraduate students came from three different universities and disciplines of engineering, computer science, anthropology, communications, and political science. The eight undergraduate and one high school students became primary ethnographers who collected data in a two-week invention education summer workshop offered online for high school students in the U.S. and other countries. The online workshop was a collaboration by an invention-education program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a large biotechnology company with offices across the U.S. and internationally.

The Student Fellows program in which undergraduate students were introduced to ethnography through lectures and a hands-on-ethnographic study was co-designed by three experienced ethnographers representing two universities as well academic and service-organization perspectives. The service organization and its funder were the primary clients for the ethnographic report produced through the 6-week Student Fellows program. Data consisted of audiovisual recordings of the Student Fellows program meetings over the six weeks, the online course modules and student reflections and discussion posts in the learning management system, the final report produced for the client, as well as the data undergraduate student fellows generated by conducting participant observation and ethnographic interviewing during the two-week workshop for high school students.

The second project comes from a 4-year EU funded project conducted in Lithuania at the intersection of educational and health care research. Researchers from Education facilitated the project and included participants from health care organizations, higher education programs for healthcare, and people with disabilities and their caregivers across Lithuania. Driven by ethnographic goals, the project involved multiple data collection methods and researchers. Data generated included interviews and surveys with varied stakeholders in the healthcare and healthcare education system, observational data in education programs, and reports prepared by academic researchers for presentation and publication to Lithuanian and international audiences.

In ethnography, illuminating the experiences and perspectives of the researched is paramount. However, it is disconcerting to note that some voices are not represented or are only represented in certain disciplines. Seemingly leaving it to educational sciences (Albon/Huf 2021) ethnographic research with (young) children has been neglected by the scientific disciplines from which ethnography has evolved, namely Social and Cultural Anthropology (Hirschfeld 2002 a.o.)^[1], as well as Sociology (Alanen 2014 a. o.). With elucidating possible reasons behind this partial neglect, this proposal addresses the significance of future ethnographic research with young humans in the context of posthumanist approaches. Based on new materialist theorist Karen Barad (2007), I argue that a new theoretical perspective on ethnography, a focus on this demographic, but also a shift to the perception and impact of other neglected actors – such as more-than-humans (Taylor/Fairchild 2020) – is crucial. This proposal highlights the need for an inclusive and more entangled understanding of early childhood (Hamilton/Taylor 2017: 112) and early childhood ethnography. By exploring and reflecting on complexities and challenges of ethnographic research in entangled life(s), implying that “precarity is the condition of our time” (Tsing 2015: 20, emphasis in original), contemporary and future aspirations of ethnographic research are outlined to think differently about entanglements of human/nature/technology (Taylor/Hughes 2016) and the paradox of focusing more on young humans while at the same time decentring them theoretically and analytically (Pacini-Ketchabaw/Taylor/Blaise 2016).

When childhood as a social category is not considered as entangled becoming-with (Bollig 2020) it can manifest itself in an age range or discourse construction alienating young humans as humans who are not yet fully developed, no real humans yet. In this contribution, I argue that research on childhood can be conducted differently from research with children. Research on childhood usually means a top-down approach to young humans (and their lives) that turns actors into objects of research, often represented by their caregivers or legal representatives. Thus, a reason for the neglect of ethnographic research may be due to the perception of a cognitive and communicative incompetence of young humans. Underestimating their experiences and with that denying their significance, ethnographic researchers in Sociology, STS or Cultural Studies seemingly prioritize older age groups (e.g. Heath/Brooks/Cleaver/Ireland 2009) or, it seems, young humans are being researched “indirectly” by analysing artefacts of childhood, like toys, clothing, or literature/media (e.g. in German Cultural Studies: Weber-Kellermann 1979).

Nevertheless, by exploring and being with young humans in educational settings ethnographically, researchers gather valuable insights into lived experiences (e.g. Lareau 2011). Furthermore, from a new materialist perspective “deep hanging out” (Geertz 1998) means deep entanglement. Ethnography in the context of Agential Realism indicates the researcher as an agential part of the research process, which presupposes that there is no objectivity and no observer “from outside”. Consequently, this is opposed to research about young humans, about objects of research – but, on the contrary, means research with young humans: Research with and within humans and more-than-humans, as it is all entangled-with, also the researcher him- or herself, to “further learn them and ourselves in action” (Tsing 2013: 34, emphasis in original).

Regarding current uncertainties and future challenges in educational contexts, another vital but neglected perspective comes into focus: The entanglement of humans and more-than-humans. Advances in technology do already and will further impact ethnographic research, e.g. by altering communication or data collection. Moreover, it will also change how researchers “think ethnography”: Posthumanist approaches question what “being human” means.

^{[1] With exceptions: Lancy, D. F. (2022). The Anthropology of Childhood. Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings (3rd ed.), Cambridge University Press; Mead, M. (1931). Growing up in New Guinea. London Routledge.}