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Developments in qualitative research have increasingly recognized the value of modes of ethnographic inquiry that go beyond the conventional model of the lone ethnographer. Many examples involve parallel, collaborative enquiry in which ethnographers come together around frameworks, share data and collaborate in analysis – rather than working as a collective throughout the research process, including fieldwork, what we refer to here as ‘collective ethnography’. Less has been written on doing collective ethnography as a practice. Through a series of vignettes, this article tells the story of a research experiment in collective ethnography, focusing on politicians and their social worlds in São Paulo, Brazil. We suggest that an engaged process of collective enquiry offers sources of insight that usually lie beyond the ethnographic gaze: including into our own conduct and the choices we make in our ethnographic encounters and interpretive avenues.
Cornwall et al. (Wed,) studied this question.