Learning Ethnography Through Doing Ethnography: Two Student—Researchers’ Insights

Abstract

In this article, we present the accounts of the field experiences and challenges of two graduate student-researchers practising ethnographic methodology, conducting fieldwork, and writing up “post-modern” ethnographies that are both creative and “integrative”. We describe the complexities and tensions when two student-researchers negotiated many issues in the field and “behind the desk” as they transformed the texts: epistemology and ontology, reflexivity and auto-ethnography, and writing researchers and participants in and out of accounts. We conclude with a discussion on pedagogical implications, and consider the value of learning ethnography through doing ethnography.