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The Chicago guide to collaborative ethnography / Luke Eric Lassiter. p. cm.—(Chicago guides to writing, editing, and publishing) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-226-46889-5 (cloth : alk. paper)—isbn 0-226-46890-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Ethnology—Methodology. 2. Ethnology—Research. 3. Ethnology—Field work. I. Title: Collaborative ethnography. II. Title. III. Series. gn33.l35 2005 305.8'001—dc22 2005006396 o The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1992. For Glenn D. Hinson, professor, colleague, and friend contents Preface and Acknowledgments ix part one history and theory 1 1 From “Reading over the Shoulders of Natives” to “Reading alongside Natives,” Literally: Toward a Collaborative and Reciprocal Ethnography 3 2 Defining a Collaborative Ethnography 15 3 On the Roots of Ethnographic Collaboration 25 4 The New (Critical) Ethnography: On Feminist and Postmodern Approaches to Collaboration 48 part two practice 77 5 Ethics and Moral Responsibility 79 6 Ethnographic Honesty 98 7 Accessible Writing 117 8 Collaborative Reading, Writing, and Co-interpretation 133 Notes 155 References 165 Index 191 preface and acknowledgments The El Dorado Task Force insists that the anthropology of indigenous peoples and related communities must move toward “collaborative” models, in which anthropological research is not merely combined with advocacy, but inherently advocative in that research is, from its outset, aimed at material, symbolic, and political benefits for the research population, as its members have helped to define these. Collaborative research involves the side-by-side work of all parties in a mutually beneficial research program. All parties are equal partners in the enterprise, participating in the development of the research design and in other major aspects of the program as well, working together toward a common goal. Collaborative research involves more than “giving back” in the form of advocacy and attention to social needs. Only in the collaborative model is there a full give and take, where at every step of the research knowledge and expertise is [sic] shared. In collaborative research, the local community will define its needs, and will seek experts both within and without to develop research programs and action plans. In the process of undertaking research on such community-defined needs, outside researchers may very well encounter knowledge that is of interest to anthropological theory. However, attention to such interests, or publication about them, must itself be developed within the collaborative framework, and may have to be set aside if they are not of equal concern to all the collaborators. In collaborative research, local experts work side by side with outside researchers, with a fully dialogic exchange of knowledge (that would not, of course, preclude conventional forms of training). —American Anthropological Association, El Dorado Task Force Papers in their final report to the American Anthropological Association, the El Dorado Task Force, which had been charged with assessing the allegations laid out by Patrick Tierney in his Darkness in El Dorado (2000), emphasized “collaborative research” as a critical component of their recommendations. In general these recommendations seemed a logical outgrowth of the whole Tierney a=air, but this particular call for collaborative research also marked a [ix [Preface and Acknowledgments ] climax of anthropology’s crisis in the overall project to represent others— first initiated in the 1960s and 1970s by a critique of anthropology’s colonial heritage. While most anthropologists would be hard-pressed to disagree with the El Dorado Task Force, some powerful anthropologists were quick to dis- miss their recommendations for collaborative research as unprofessional, invalid, even incompetent (see, e.g., Gross and Plattner 2002). This was not the first time those in power had dismissed the viability of collaborative re- search. As I will argue in this book, models for collaborative research have been around for a very long time. Although these models have been ignored or discarded before, collaboration with research subjects is today becoming one of the most important ethical, theoretical, and methodological issues in anthropology (see Brettell 1996; Hymes 2002; Jaarsma 2002; Marcus 2001). Of course, collaboration of sorts has always been a consequence of the intimate relationships that define anthropological research, but it is no longer just a taken-for-granted consequence of fieldwork; collaboration now preconditions and shapes both the design and the dissemination of research. This book is about the move from incidental and conditional collabo- ration to the building of a more deliberate and explicit collaborative ethnog- raphy. Ethnographic practice (whether carried out in single-sited or multi- sited communities) has always included collaboration on some level, but the collaborative ethnography to which I refer promises to extend that collabora- tion more systematically throughout both fieldwork and the writing process. This book, then, is about the history, theory, and practice of collabora- tive ethnography. I have split my discussion into two sections: history and theory (part 1) and practice (part 2). In part 1, I chart the history of collabo- rative ethnography in my own training and development as an anthropol- ogist, from my days as an undergraduate until the present, and more impor- tantly in the discipline as a whole. I center my discussion on the U.S. project in ethnography, though I do not exclude other regional developments. While ethnographic experiments in collaboration have transpired in British and French anthropology (see, e.g., Cli=ord 1982), I argue, like George E. Marcus and Michael M. J. Fischer (1986, viii), that U.S. anthropology’s still resonating experimental moment, centered on dialogue and collaboration in both eth- nographic fieldwork and writing, “reflects a historical development in which anthropology in the United States seems to be synthesizing the three national traditions” of British, French, and U.S. anthropology. On the other hand, I diverge somewhat from Marcus and Fischer (1986), contending, like Regna x] [ Preface and Acknowledgments ] Darnell (2001a), that the strongest precedents for collaborative practice were (and continue to be) most pronounced in the Americanist tradition, particularly in, but certainly not only in, Native American studies. Such long- established and time-honored experiments provide us the base, I believe, for more critically situating our current discussions of collaborative practice— particularly as they are now framed by feminist and postmodern approaches to ethnography. This contemporary discussion, in turn, provides us the base for realizing at last the fullest potential of collaborative ethnography. In part 2, I outline the steps for achieving this more deliberate and ex- plicit collaborative ethnography. It is, of course, my own particular vision; and mine is by no means the only vision. I thus seek to combine my collaborative research experience with the experiences of many others, both past and pres- ent, to provide what I believe is a rich foundation for building a contemporary collaborative ethnography. My discussion of practice is not meant to replace earlier surveys of research methods and procedures (such as participant- observation/observant participation) that obviously rest on field collabora-