Duo-ethnographic Methods: A Feminist Take on Collaborative Research

Abstract

Duo-ethnography is a collaborative methodology in which participants juxtapose their experiences around a topic to parse multiple perspectives. It explicitly positions ethnographers as sources of information, not data collectors. This method has been used to explore racial identities, class dynamics, decolonizing pedagogies, and gender in academic life. Building on previous work, we consider our contribution to be articulating duo-ethnography as an explicitly feminist methodology that allows for mutual exploration of difference as well as reciprocal care and support. As part of a larger collaboration, we used duo-ethnography to create explicit dialog spaces during the COVID-19 pandemic to talk about differences in our experiences related to sexuality, race, class, tenure position, and seniority. Duo-ethnography is one method we used to challenge junior/senior relations and transform how we related to one another.