Paper short abstract:

In our work, we will think about the construction processes of experimental collaborations in the research. The starting point will be the analysis of an ethnographic investigation with role game players in which the forms of participation change along the fieldwork.

Paper long abstract:

The purpose of our work is to think about the construction process of experimental collaborations in the ethnographic research with young people and children.

Experimental collaborations are a kind of practice that understands the research as a creative activity. It is an open-ended process, a tinkering with methods (Kullman, 2012). Participants stop being simple informants and they are considered to be experts in the area of interest with an active role in the research (Estalella and Sánchez-Criado, 2018).

Experimental collaborations are the methodological choice in some works (Estalella and Sánchez-Criado, 2018). Nevertheless, there are many ethnographic studies (Kullman, 2012; Mendoza, 2017) in which, for different reasons (the fieldwork entrance, the participants' aims, the participation structures in the fieldwork, etc.) the experimental collaboration cannot give supposed a priori. Thus, departing from a role game players experience analysis, we will show how collaboration is gaining ground in a traditional ethnographic design so that the participants' decision making and their initiatives are shaping the relation established with them as the own fieldwork process.

We will think about how participation and relation structures are built and re-built in a way to be open or close to experimental collaborations.

References:

Estalella, A., and Sánchez-Criado, T. (2018). Experimental collaborations: Ethnography through fieldwork devices. New York: Berghahn Books.

Kullman, K. (2012). Experiments with moving children and digital cameras. Children's Geographies, 10(1), 1-16.

Mendoza, K. (2017). Adolescentes y jóvenes migrantes en Bizkaia: prácticas de vida y socialidad. Tesis doctoral. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.