The politics of method: from leftist ethnography to educative research

TLDR

Ethnography has become the dominant method of the American educational left, yet debates have largely focused on reliability and validity, obscuring its political purpose. The authors aim to reintroduce the political moment into methodological debates by exploring ethnography’s potential to promote emancipatory change. Their analysis shows that separating understanding from application and the researcher from those researched limits ethnography’s capacity to inform and foster emancipatory change.

Abstract

In the last two decades, ethnography has become the dominant methodology of the American educational left. While debates have raged over the use of this method, for the most part they have focused on concepts of reliability and validity. Unfortunately, this emphasis has obscured the relation between method and what the researcher is trying to achieve through the method ‐ its political moment. We strive to put the political moment back in the methodological debate by considering the potential of ethnography to foster emancipatory change ‐ the express purpose of the left. Our analysis suggests that the separation of understanding and application, as well as that of the researcher from those researched, constrains the potential of ethnography to inform and foster emancipatory change.