Diffractive ethnography: a divergent methodology in educational research

Abstract

Diffractive ethnography is a divergent methodology in educational research that seeks to enact posthuman thinking, in particular, the concept of diffraction as a methodological approach, through the application of ethnographic methods. In this paper, we consider how we can rethink the humanistic tendencies of qualitative methodologies in educational research to more authentically embrace nonhuman other and in doing so, offer new methods in undertaking ethnography diffractively. This methodological approach offers a way to undertake qualitative, educational research by drawing on conventional and rigorous ethnographic methods framed through posthuman theory that enable thinking and knowledge generation beyond the scope of current practices. We present a suite of eight principles of diffractive data entanglements informed by the diffractive ethnographic methodology and explore how these may be put to work in practice in educational research. Through demonstrating diffractive ethnography in practice, we grapple with the humanist focus of ethnographies by troubling the human as central to educational research and instead, include the entanglements of all materiality.