Duoethnography ─ Dialogic Methods for Social, Health, and Educational Research

Duoethnography is a collaborative research methodology in which two or more researchers juxtapose their life histories in order to provide multiple understandings of a social phenomenon. Using their own biographies as sites of research and creating dialogic narratives, they provide multiple perspectives of this phenomenon for the reader, inviting the viewer to enter the conversation. The dialectic process of creating duoethnography is also designed to be transformative to the writers. In this volume, two dozen scholars present the first wave of duoethnographic writings on topics as diverse as gender, identity, and curriculum, with the editors framing key tenets of the methodology around the studies presented. This participatory, emancipatory methodology is of interest to those doing qualitative research and narrative writing in many disciplines.

Joe Norris is professor of Drama in Education and Applied Theatre in the Department of Dramatic Arts, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts at Brock University. He advocates the arts as ways of knowing, doing and being. His book, Playbuilding as Qualitative Research: A Participatory Arts-based Approach purports that playbuilding is a legitimate research methodology and received The American Educational Research Association’s Qualitative Research SIG’s Outstanding Book Award in 2011. His work with duoethnography furthers his interest in designing dialogic qualitative research methodologies that assist in the reconceptualization of the world and of self.Richard Sawyer is an Associate Professor of Education at Washington State University Vancouver. He chairs both the EdD Program in Teacher Leadership for Washington State University and the MIT Secondary Certification Program at Washington State University Vancouver. The focus of his research is on the pedagogy of change and praxis, specifically within the contexts of duoethnography, international democratic education, teacher decision-making, and curriculum theory. In terms of international education, he has recently conducted research in Oaxaca, Mexico and Palestine. The applied context of curriculum theory is a key focus of his work. He is currently completing an additional book with Joe Norris: Understanding Qualitative Research: Duoethnography (Oxford University Press).Darren E. Lund is a Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Calgary, where his research examines social justice activism in schools and communities. Darren earned his PhD at UBC, and his duoethnographic work is an extension of his ongoing inquiry into topics around identity, sexual orientation, youth activism, and social justice pedagogy. Darren is a former high school teacher, and is currently “Welcoming Communities” Domain Leader with the Prairie Metropolis Centre. He enjoys working collaboratively and has two co-edited books (with Paul Carr):The Great White North? Exploring Whiteness, Privilege and Identity in Education (2007, Sense Publishers) and Doing Democracy: Striving for Political Literacy and Social Justice (2008, Peter Lang Press).