Duoethnography

Duoethnography is a collaborative research methodology in which two or more researchers engage in a dialogue on their disparate histories in a given phenomenon. Their goal is to interrogate and re-conceptualize existing beliefs through a conversation that is written in a play-script format. The methodology of duoethnography serves as the focus of this book. Duoethnography facilitates stratified, nested, auto-ethnographic accounts of a given research context or question, designed to emphasize the complex, reflexive, and aesthetic aspects of both the work in process and the product. As a curriculum and a research method, duoethnography explores two seminal issues: representation in qualitative research (how to represent findings when findings are created within a dynamic phenomenonological text), and praxis (how research contributes to a sense of personal change). Duoethnography allows researchers to explore their hybrid identities and to see how their lives have been situated socially and culturally. Recent duoethnographic studies have examined a range of topics, including forms of institutionalized racism, beauty, post-colonialism, multicultural identity construction, and professional boundaries between patient and practitioner in mental health professions.

Richard Sawyer is Associate Professor of Education at Washington State University in Vancouver, Washington. He chairs the EdD Program in Teacher Leadership at Washington State University and the MIT Secondary Certification Program at Washington State University, Vancouver. His research includes curriculum studies and qualitative methodologies that are focused on emergent understandings and grounded epistemologies, in order to improve society and promote participatory democracy. He recently conducted research in Oaxaca, Mexico and Palestine. The applied context of curriculum theory and the relationships between curriculum theory and qualitative research methodologies are key foci of his work.

Joe Norris is Professor of Drama in Education and Applied Theatre in the Department of Dramatic Arts at Brock University. He is an advocate of the arts as a means of knowing, doing, and being, and he has spent a number of years pioneering research methodologies and instructional and assessment strategies that employ arts-based approaches. His book Playbuilding as Qualitative Research: A Participatory Arts-Based Approach, which is based on his extensive work with Mirror Theatre (a social issues theatre company), received the American Educational Research Association's Qualitative Research SIG's 2011 Outstanding Book Award. With co-editors Laura McCammon and Carole Miller, he edited Learning to Teach Drama: A Case Narrative Approach, which includes case narratives written by student teachers about their field experiences. In addition to his research and teaching, Joe has recently served as the Communications Officer for the Brock University Faculty Association and is their incoming Joint Health and Safety Officer.