Separately and together: reflections on conducting a collaborative team ethnography in dementia care

Ethnography has classically been conducted by a single scholar, often referred to as a ‘Lone Ranger’, who develops an interpretation of a cultural setting based on their immersion within it. Overshadowed by this historical icon and located within an academe that privileges individual achievement, ethnography as a group effort has received less consideration in the methodology literature. Nevertheless, team ethnography conducted by multiple researchers at one or more research sites is becoming increasingly common and requires explicit attention. With reference to the existing literature and a recent team ethnography of in -patient dementia care, this paper argues that team ethnography is not just a case of „add researchers and stir‟, but rather a methodology entailing specific issues and considerations. In particular, the paper explores how the two -phase design of the dementia care ethnography – which entailed researchers collecting data first as conventional lone ethnographers, then as a team with shared understandings and objectives – brings to light the opportunities and challenges of this methodology.