Paper short abstract:

Is it possible to democratise ethnography? We reflect on the term ‘citizen ethnography’ as a possible answer to this question. We define this as an approach that recognises multiple contributions to fieldwork, analysis and authorship, albeit with a number of inequalities.

Paper long abstract:

Is it possible to democratise ethnography? We reflect on the term ‘citizen ethnography’ as a possible answer to this question. We define this as an approach that recognises multiple contributions to fieldwork, analysis and authorship, albeit with a number of inequalities, where academics work with non-academics. We reflect on longstanding debates around the uses of research assistants and other devices that have distanced the analytical contributions of non-academics in published ethnographic work. We also reflect on the terms ‘local’ and ‘indigenous’ and why the authors of this article resist these ascriptions in thinking about their ethnographer identities. We also demonstrate, through a series of examples, how citizen ethnography means working both within, and away from, home areas, and how it involves responding critically and reflexively to academic texts as part of the process. In understanding ethnographic analysis as ‘intersubjective practise’ we see opportunities for opening up questions around who gets credit.