Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 19th Aug 2026, 21:29:25 EET
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19 SES 16 A: Reflexive, Ethical and Inclusive Ethnographic Methodologies
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19. Ethnography
Paper Working on Critical Cultural Literacy through Ethics-in-Practice: Tensions and Possibilities Between Schools and Researchers while ‘Entering the Field’ Universidad de Barcelona, Spain Presenting Author:This paper explores the ethical tensions that emerged during the initial ‘entering the field’ phase developed in two public schools of Barcelona in the context of the research project EXPECT_Art. The European research project Exploring and Educating Cultural Literacy through Art (EXPECT_Art) examines the challenges and opportunities of fostering critical cultural literacy across twelve schools in Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Spain. Grounded in a decolonial perspective (Thambinathan & Kinsella, 2021), EXPECT_Art conceptualizes critical cultural literacy as active engagement with diverse knowledge canons and the sensory experiences of historically marginalized groups (Vergès, 2019). Additionally, it critically interrogates school curricula as instruments of hegemonic modernity (Paraskeva & Steinberg, 2016), aiming to dismantle hierarchical power structures in classroom practices (Fassett & Warren, 2007). However, we must approach these objectives with caution. As Gorski (2008) points out, when researchers aim to contribute to curriculum decolonisation, they risk adopting a colonising position by prefiguring the reality of schools—schools that, in many cases, already welcome children from diverse cultural backgrounds and embrace them through care practices and curricula that value differences. This paper focuses on the ‘entering the field’ phase of EXPECT_Art, where critical ethnography (Madison, 2005; Noblit et al., 2004) through participant observation was the common approach among partners. During a three-month period, from October to December 2024, five researchers engaged regularly with both institutions, interacting with various educational settings, particularly classrooms—and delving into the place of the arts within the curriculum. Our observations, documented in collaborative field diaries, helped us reflect on the complexities and nuances of these encounters. A central question that arose was the role researchers should assume when entering a school field that has its own contextual and relational ethics; and how to pursue a non-extractive and caring approach to each school community. This often required balancing the decolonial agenda of EXPECT_Art—aimed at problematizing conventional curricular structures—with the need to cultivate sustainable relationships with students, teachers and school staff, who often act from complex positions of power. In this respect, the concept of ethics-in-practice (Guillemin & Gillam, 2004) was particularly insightful as it pertains to the fluid and processual nature of research, highlighting the relational, discursive and performative aspects of fieldwork. Ethics-in-practice addresses moments of uncertainty in research and how researchers respond to them. Thus, ethics in the educational research practice refers to the ability to be affected by the learning environment and allowing that effectiveness to mediate interpersonal relationships within the classroom. This proposal offers critical reflections on the challenges encountered when entering the field and the decisions made, both in the moment and through subsequent reflection. By examining critical incidents (Gremel, 2004; Ornellas Sobral, 2016) across four ethical domains categorized by Sarah Tracy (2010): (1) procedural ethics, (2) situational ethics, (3) ethical relationships, and (4) ethical issues in exiting the study, we analyze our experiences and the choices we faced. Through this interwoven narrative of incidents, we aim to provide insights into reflexivity in community-based qualitative research, with particular relevance for school contexts. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used In the frame of EXPECT_Art, this paper explores the ethical tensions that emerged during the initial phase of this project, when entering the field in two public schools in Barcelona. The methodological approach when arriving at the schools was defined by a common basis of participant observation to identify and collect ‘key incidents’ (Connolly, 2017; Jensen & Hobel, 2020) from a critical ethnographic practice (Thomas, 1993). This methodological framework became our starting point but during the entering the field research process other conceptual and methodological approaches, such as ethics-in-practice and critical incidents (Gremler, 2004), sustained and informed this work, and their trajectories are developed in the proposal. We have drawn on the notion of ethics-in-practice through reflecting on critical incidents experienced during EXPECT_Art’s ‘entering in the field’ phase in both schools. One critical incident in this process occurred when a secondary school teacher, who had studied her major on anthropology, asked us: “Why do you limit yourselves to observing the classroom from the corner, with your diary in hand?”. In fact, by doing so, we were following a prior suggestion from the school principal to avoid placing pressure on teachers by taking a more active role in the classes. This led us to realize that there were no taken-for-granted or assumed ways of approaching classroom environments; rather, we had to continuously negotiate and reflect on our position in each situation. To organize, share and illustrate our ethical discussion, we have used a methodology from a narrative approach, where we have put together various critical incidents registered in our field diaries, which entangle under four domains to guide reflective ethical thinking: (1) procedural ethics, (2) situational ethics (the research context), (3) ethical relationships (dynamics between the researcher and participants), and (4) ethical issues in exiting the study (completion and disseminating findings) (Tracy, 2010). Observation, dialogue and bodily interaction with participants and their everyday school spaces has allowed us to explore the sensorialities, movements, and uncertainties that arise in the relationships once we approach a field that already has its own situational ethics (Tracy, 2010). And recognize how, ourselves as researchers, become active interference of these complex and unpredictable ethical relationships. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings The field-entry phase revealed ethics as a situated and affective process, shaped by the capacity to be affected by unforeseen or seemingly peripheral elements of the field. Rather than resolving tensions or contradictions, this positionality recognizes them as constitutive of ethical becoming. Moving beyond simplified understandings of research ethics, we attend to the multiplicity of actions that unfold in research encounters and embrace mutual recognition as a dynamic process sustaining collaboration over time (de Riba Mayoral, 2024). From this perspective, we present two preliminary findings from the field-entry phase. First, ethics cannot be understood solely as a matter of team agreements. Researchers may perceive and respond to critical incidents in divergent, and at times contradictory, ways. Such variability does not weaken ethical reflexivity; on the contrary, it deepens its complexity and evidence ethics-in-practice. The unpredictable often unfolds in less-than-ideal ways, and actions are not always taken at the “right” moment. Hesitation, delay, and imperfection are therefore not failures, but integral dimensions of ethical becoming. Second, ethical agreements with stakeholders, such as school communities, are never fixed but remain in flux. While initial agreements often reflect shared terms of political ‘goodwill’, what unfolds in the field is shaped by diversity and situated interactions. Researchers’ ethical trajectories are non-linear and develop through human interactions that may blur the boundaries between researcher and participant, at times displacing institutional frameworks as the primary locus of ethical engagement. From a reflexive perspective, ethical practice involves sustained attention to the tensions and potentials of relationships throughout the research process. What matters is not only what we aim to know or achieve, but how knowledge is produced and represented. Care and responsibility extend beyond fieldwork to writing itself, as ethics also has a narrative dimension that requires accounting for relationships in the texts we produce (Zylinska, 2014). References Connolly, P. (2017) RAce, gender and critical reflexivity in research with young children. IN P. Christensen & A. James (Eds.), Research with Children (pp. 104-120): Routledge de Riba Mayoral, S. (2024). Las prácticas audiovisuales colaborativas como fenómeno afectivo-pedagógico-feminista de investigación. Un estudio difractivo sobre los Laboratorios Audiovisuales de Género del IE Pepa Colomer. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Universitat de Barcelona. Fassett, D.L., & Warren, J.T. (2007). Critical communication pedagogy. Sage Publications. Gorski, P. C. (2008). Good intentions are not enough: a decolonizing intercultural education. Intercultural Education, 19(6), 515–525. https://doi.org/10.1080/14675980802568319 Gremler, D. D. (2004). The Critical Incident Technique in Service Research. Journal of Service Research, 7(1), 65–89. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094670504266138 Guillemin, M. & Guillam, L. (2004). Ethics, reflexivity, and “ethically important moments” in research. Qualitative Inquiry, 10(2), 261-280. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800403262360 Jensen, S. s., and Hobel, P. (2020). Key incidents in Child-Centered MIgration Research: Exploring Methodological and Epistemological Implications of Child-Researcher Interaction. Znanstveno Raziskovalno Sredisce Republike Slovenije. Annales. Series Historia et Sociología, 30(4), 575-586 Madison, D. S. (2005). Critical ethnography: Method, ethics, and performance. Sage Publications. Noblit, G. W., Flores, S. Y., & Murillo, E. G. (2004). Postcritical ethnography: Reinscribing critique. Hampton Press Ornellas Sobral, M. (2016). O papel da autoria dos jovens na relação entre o museu de arte contemporânea e a escola. Universitat de Barcelona. Tesis Doctoral. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/398961 Paraskeva, J., & Steinberg, S. (2016). Curriculum: Decanonizing the field. Peter Lang. Thambinathan, V., & Kinsella, E. A. (2021). Decolonizing methodologies in qualitative research: Creating spaces for transformative praxis. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 20. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069211014766 Thomas, J. (1993). Doing critical ethnography. Sage Publications. Tracy, S. J. (2010). Qualitative Quality: Eight “Big-Tent” Criteria for Excellent Qualitative Research. Qualitative Inquiry, 16, 837–851. doi:10.1177/1077800410383121 Vergès, F. (2019) Capitalocene, Waste, Race, and Gender. e-flux, 100, May 2019. https://www.e-flux.com/journal/100/269165/capitalocene-waste-race-andgender/ Zylinska, J. (2014). Minimal ethics for the Anthropocene. Open Humanities. http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/ohp.12917741.0001.001 19. Ethnography
Paper The Rug Methodology as an Ethnographic Practice in Educational Research Settings 1: University G. d'Annunzio of Chieti-Pescara, Italy; 2: Åbo Akademi Vasa: Vasa, FI Presenting Author:The Rug Methodology is an ethnographic research practice that uses the metaphor and act of weaving to explore life courses, well-being, and resilience. It was born as an extension to in-depth interviews, exploring subjective experiences within the human–nature relationship and the ways these experiences contribute to well-being. It involves participants drawing or mapping rugs— everyday objects of our cultural heritage reimagined as symbolic spaces—to visualize lived experiences, emotions, and social interactions. Rugs have been made for millennia in several countries and cultures, crafted from a variety of materials and serving multiple purposes. Rugs serve as a metaphor for a bounded "lived space". Participants use drawing to represent life events, transitions, and daily routines, making abstract experiences more tangible for both researcher and participant. Cultural and educational processes, like all forms of knowledge building, learning and teaching, occur both within and outside formal educational institutions. These spatial-temporal phenomena include professional and non-professional practices dedicated to the arts, “to do activities”, democratic participation, representations, listening, and collective historis, or educational work in institutions such as museums, libraries, neighborhood, community centers, and health and social services, as well as their evaluation as "public pedagogies". Their aim is to actively promote multiple ways of knowing and being entangled in the world, speaking within the groups in which they are generated and externally, to the common world. The Rug Methodology is now called upon to integrate sustainable ideas for research and human life into its methodological repertoire. Why do we not embrace investigative trajectories stemming from Indigenous research, which rethought the codes of expression and data collection with respect to the cultural heritage of indigenous communities, reflecting on what can be considered a tool or data in a research dialogue among researchers? Indigenous research creates an entanglement among everyday activities, cultural heritage, the relationship between humans/non humans, and the human need to give substance, voice, and form to one's narrative identity. In our case, the narrative is connected to other modes of expression. One recalls the ancient art of weaving and braiding carpets, while the other refers to thoughts and actions through a process of symbolization and arto-graphic representation. Purpose of this paper is to explore adaptations of the Rug Methodology in educational contexts, where rugs are both a product and a process. Different background and countries of the authors represent the added value to question the Rug methodology and its possible use in educational research and as an ethnographic practice in educational settings. Rugs are not only understood here exclusively as subjects/objects of ethnographic research, but also as methods capable of exploring knowledge building in its practical form. The theoretical framework combines the intersection of ethnography, pedagogy, and indigenous research grounded in several multi-disciplinary frameworks: • Antonovsky’s salutogenic model which focuses on the origins of health and how individuals mobilize resources to cope with life stressors. • Merleau-Ponty’s theories: the act of "drawing a rug" is viewed as a pre-reflective activity that makes visible the "invisible" aspects of human experience. • Indigenous contribution to Research: the Indigenous concepts of weaving as storytelling, where ancient wisdom and personal imagination provide space to connect complex processes. • Picturing Research: It positions research as a multimodal and trans-disciplinary performance used to advance social justice and inclusive practice through expressive methods related to drawing. The diffractive reading of ethnography, pedagogy, and Indigenous epistemologies offers a transformative approach to knowledge production in educational settings, moving away from dominated paradigms toward collaborative, respectful, and resilient methods, which integrate local wisdom by incorporating storytelling, sharing circles, art creation, and ceremony as valid warm data sources. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used The Rug Methodology shifts the researcher's role from "observer" to "facilitator", and it creates a setting for knowledge building which can be replicated in other educational settings such as schools (they are a traditional tool in Steiner’s pedagogy) or higher education. Modern Indigenous research moves beyond "studying" communities from the outside, shifting toward relational accountability where the researcher is part of a communal "ceremony". The idea is Decolonizing Methodology and rejecting the "objective" outsider lens that historically pathologized Indigenous and vulnerable peoples, instead using methods like Indigenous autoethnography to combine storytelling with academic rigor. Relevant principles of such a model are focusing on how to involve participants directly from their learning environment and its history; they foster holistic and resilient approaches to engage participant’ spirit, mind, body, and emotions; they focus on intergenerational learning among women through storytelling, and community interaction rather than isolated groups. The Rug Methodology serves as a compelling case study within this framework, acting as an arts-based, visual tool that aligns with Indigenous ways of knowing by using metaphor, storytelling, and "to-do" activities (like weaving) to explore lived experiences. Traditional ethnography, which involves deep immersion and participant observation, is often criticized for its colonial roots. The entanglement with Indigenous research methodologies reframes this statement by centering relationships, emphasizing reciprocity, respect, and responsibility; by focusing on self-determination, ensuring research is conducted with rather than on vulnerable groups; The Rug task is to draw and then wave a river, a metaphor where life is viewed as a "timeline" where colors, patterns, and knots represent life events, emotions, and coping strategies. Weaving Stories is an individual and social process: Tachine identifies weaving as a metaphor for connecting ancient wisdom, and "story rugs" can represent Indigenous journeys. Moving from a previous study in Finland introducing the RM to explore how residents in rural areas used nature to cope with life events, the present paper will describe workshops based on the Rug methodology as an ethnographic practice in higher education. Participants (10 students) drew rugs to visualize their well-being, mapping coping and resilient strategies. The drawing process allowed for deeper reflection, revealing that participants often used color to express emotions (e.g., red for passion/recovery, black for difficult times). It functioned as a "reflective" tool, helping participants become more aware of their own resources and assets. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings Starting from these premises and drawing on Mortari's studies, we place this contribution within a reflection on the culture of ethnographic research in pedagogy, inserting it into an ecological paradigm to investigate and understand the complexity of human relationships in educational contexts. Mortari defines it as an ecological paradigm “because of the importance that Batesonian thinking has assumed, which calls for a science capable of overcoming a certain set of unsustainable ideas in order to give substance to an ecology of good ideas not only for research but for human life as a whole”. Pedagogy and educational research are therefore called upon to define epistemologies and methodologies with reference to what is visible and explicit, but also to what struggles to emerge, immersing themselves in the everyday realities of educational and social life. The methodological proposal, born out of a collaboration between Italy and Finland, gave rise to the drawing/weaving methodology. In indigenous and higher education research, "story rugs" or "weaving stories" are used to integrate ancestral or community knowledge into academic frameworks. The Rug Methodology, when applied within an ethnographic, Indigenous framework, promotes: inclusivity (It is suitable for diverse, vulnerable, or marginalized groups); alternative knowledge production (ethnographic sensibility and ethnographic imagination by allowing researchers to see "what really happens" in daily life, legitimizing visual and arts-based knowledge); cooperation (It transforms participants from subjects to co-creators of knowledge); warm data analysis (interpreting visual data and "lived experiences" from drawings). Finally, we can state that this methodology is particularly suitable for vulnerable or marginalized groups —including children and those from diverse cultural backgrounds—because it does not rely solely on linguistic fluency. It has been used to explore human-nature relationships and how people in rural areas mobilize resources for quality of life. References Antonovsky, A. (1987). Unravelling the mystery of Health. How people manage stress and stay well. San Francisco, CA, US: Jossey Bass. Bodman, G. (2017). Nature as Health Promotion “The Rug of Life” as a Method. Proceedings, 1, 877. doi:10.3390/proceedings1090877. Bodman, G. M., & Garista, P. (2023). The Rug Methodology in Qualitative Studies. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 22, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069231205774 Brady, I. (2004). In defense of the sensual: meaning construction in ethnography and poetics. Qualitative Inquiry, 10, 622–644. Garista, P. (2023). Drawing as a Reflective Practice in Life-Long Learning. In: Villa, D., Zuccoli, F. (eds) Proceedings of the 3rd International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Image and Imagination. IMG 2021. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 631. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25906-7_38 Garista, P., Pocetta, G., & Lindström, B. (2019). Picturing academic learning: salutogenic and health promoting perspectives on drawings, Health Promotion International, Volume 34, Issue 4, Pages 859–868, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/day027 Tachine A. R., Nicolazzo Z. (2022). Weaving an otherwise. In-Relations methodological practice. Stylus Publishing. Radley, A., Ryan, T., & Dowse, K. (2021). Ganggali Garral Djuyalgu (Weaving Story): Indigenous language research, the insider–outsider experience and weaving Aboriginal ways of knowing, being, and doing into academia. WINHEC: International Journal of Indigenous Education Scholarship, 16(1), pp. 411-448. http://dx.doi.org/10.18357/wj1202120293. Special Issue on Indigenous Language Revitalization: Innovation, Reflection and Future Directions, Guest Co-Editors Drs. Onowa McIvor and Kari A. B. Chew. Omrani A., Aboofazeli, T. (2024). Shared Anthropology: When Anthropology Meets Critical Public Pedagogy. Critical Arts. 38. 4–5. 194–210, from https://doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2024.2354445 Mortari L. (2015). Reflectivity in Research Practice: An Overview of Different Perspectives. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 1–9. Finley, S. (2011). Critical arts-based inquiry: The pedagogy and performance of a radical ethical aesthetic. In N.K, Denzin, & Y. S. Lincoln, (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (4th ed., pp. 435-450). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Murris K., Bozalek V. (2023), eds, In conversation with Karen Barad. Doings of agential realism, Routledge. Theron, L., Mitchell, C., & Smith, A., (2011). Picturing Research. Drawing as a visual methodology. Sense Publisher, The Netherlands. ISBN-10: 9460915957 | ||