Contribution short abstract:

Drawing on collaborative research undertaken with Yezidi women in Iraq and members of the LGBTQI community in Palestine, this contribution considers whether ethnography can become more participatory through auto-ethnographic approaches and how the methods we use can centralise the concept of care.

Contribution long abstract:

Emerging out of a recent project that sought to advance decolonial approaches to anthropological research, through this contribution we will share the lessons, findings and challenges encountered in accompanying community activists in designing, conducting, analysing and publishing auto-ethnographic research into everyday embodied experiences of peace and violence in Iraq and Palestine. In doing so, we will together explore participatory aspects of auto-ethnography, where researchers were invited to engage in co-constructing workshops and establishing methodological toolkits from which they could draw, including the likes of body mapping, photo voice and community walks, as well as journalling. By facilitating networks of researchers through regular learning circles, we also highlight the importance of trust (in one another and the process) and the role of friendship in and as method in advancing critical reflection. Through such approaches we illustrate the ways in which the methods we use, might themselves, contribute to a felt sense of peace in an “unwell” world and discuss together how an ethos of care might sit alongside methodological depth and rigour.