Duoethnography (Understanding Qualitative Research)

Duoethnography is a collaborative research methodology in which two or more researchers engage in a dialogue on their disparate histories in a given phenomenon. Their goal is to interrogate and re-conceptualize existing beliefs through a conversation that is written in a play-script format. The methodology of duoethnography serves as the focus of this book. Duoethnography facilitates stratified, nested, auto-ethnographic accounts of a given research context or question, designed to emphasize the complex, reflexive, and aesthetic aspects of both the work in process and the product. As a curriculum and a research method, duoethnography explores two seminal issues: representation in qualitative research (how to represent findings when findings are created within a dynamic phenomenonological text), and praxis (how research contributes to a sense of personal change). Duoethnography allows researchers to explore their hybrid identities and to see how their lives have been situated socially and culturally. Recent duoethnographic studies have examined a range of topics, including forms of institutionalized racism, beauty, post-colonialism, multicultural identity construction, and professional boundaries between patient and practitioner in mental health professions.