Despite being intensely sociable, ethnographic research is also deeply isolating. Although fieldworkers may feel lonely, we contend that they are not (or should not be) alone. At the 10th anniversary of Urban Ethnography Lab at the University of Texas at Austin, we reflect on the ethnographic training cultivated there. We detail objectives,…

Drawing upon slow scholarship and autobiographical methods, this paper presents four vignettes constructed from virtual meetings across the span of several months. Although we had originally intended to write a more formal paper about the ways in which the reconceptualist movement connects to our own scholarship, the writing process became less…

Institutional ethnography is often seen as a useful tool in the study of organizations and bureaucracy. However, many adaptations of the approach ignore the explicitly historical materialist project embodied in Smith's conceptualization of 'ontological shift' and her assertion that institutional ethnography is a 'reinterpretation' of Marx's…

This article explores and discusses some aspects of autoethnographies from a published collection written by working-class academics. The original objective was for each academic to write an account of their life and their experiences of becoming who they are in an industry steeped in elitism. I was interested in how they experienced becoming a…

Post qualitative inquiry has called for method-less research and warned against the incommensurability of the use of systematic research methods with poststructural and new materialist theories. This essay offers a counterpoint to the incommensurability argument by presenting four examples of studies informed by poststructural and new materialist…

In this article I describe the development of an ethnodrama intended to investigate relationships between 1st-year teachers and students of colour. Excerpts from the script, photographs of performers, and artists' interviews communicate the sensations of life in school. The show evokes the power of the classroom to hurt and to heal. It is intended…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to advocate for the use of arts-based research, particularly comic-making within narrative and ethnographic research on physical education. Method: A discussion of comics-based research is provided herein that outlines the affordances offered by the comics medium as a tool within research, particularly…

The authors have found that hands-on activities and workshops, using a variety of embodied teaching techniques, promote student learning and creative thinking. They present a zine project as a model to bring embodied learning into the classroom. Zines are small circulation, independently created, self-published works of texts and/or images. In the…

In this article, we provide an overview of diffraction theory, followed by an explanation of diffraction as an analytical methodology. We highlight how tools like the agential cut can be used to redraw the boundaries of ethnographic research so that data can be a continuous becoming with the researcher. We offer vignettes from our work on…

In this article, we reflect on our experiences with teaching ethnographic skills and sensibilities to MSc students at a Dutch university. Using methods such as (self)observation, journaling and reflection, we highlight dilemmas (conceptual, practical, ethical) faced by students when doing ethnographic fieldwork and dilemmas that emerged in…

Spurred by an observation that 'student art teachers don't want to be radical teachers', this paper explores how the gift by a lecturer of a tongue-in-cheek hand-printed 'Artistic Licence' to a new cohort of pre-service teachers, gives permission to imagine new futures. Through a dialogic image-exchange two educators bring their radical manifesto…

Many ethnographic researchers have raised concerns over the potential impacts that the institutionalization of ethics review boards can have on social science research, especially within healthcare settings. However, few articles to-date have documented how these norms and practices play out in actuality. This paper, therefore, uses…

Drawing from anticolonial scholarship, critical race theory, and critical youth studies--this paper positions youth inquiry as a form of resistance to schooling. Youth resistance communities represent learning contexts that insist on the immediacy of challenging the pain of normative schooling through Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR).…

This paper is based on a study conducted ten years ago at one university in Japan aiming at collaborative development through reflection among a teacher educator, two in-service teachers, and four pre-service graduate students. Collaborative reflection involved methods, such as the graduate students' observation of the in-service teachers' English…

Drawing upon meticulous ethnographic analysis and unique data sources, this book dissects the multifaceted challenges and occasional victories encountered by both educators and detained youth in Sweden. Originally published in Swedish, this book provides fresh insights into a crucial aspect of youth care and education. Theoretical underpinnings…