“Reflexivity Is Kicking Our Asses”: Tensions in Foregrounding Photographs in a Multimodal Ethnographic Analysis of Participation

Bringing multimodal and ethnographic approaches together, this paper seeks to identify key considerations, limitations, and implications of using photographs as primary data. We offer a concrete example of an approach that capitalizes on a systematic look at how different modes work together to foreground unique aspects of participation, while intentionally and explicitly maintaining ethnographic sensitivities. Key contributions include what it means to “trust” photographs as data and use them for their strengths in evidence‐careful ways.