Pushing Emic Bounds: Blending Critical Ethnographic and Grounded Theory Approaches to Explore Co-Researchers' Transformative Experiences

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: Researcher-Participant Relation(ship)s

Abstract

This manuscript is an effort to challenge and unsettle notions of collaborative qualitative inquiry, by calling into question if, and how, transformation emerged in a participatory action research (PAR) project. In this paper, the author sought to test an analytical approach that overlaid critical ethnographic methods with constructivist and interpretivist approaches to grounded theory. It was an attempt to balance emic perspectives and etic construction, with the aim of more closely grounding analysis to the voices and experiences of co-researchers. By analyzing PAR projects—and pushing for more emic processes in analysis—participatory inquirers can more readily honor the onto-epistemological commitments of collaborative inquiry while theorizing from data that is grounded in the words and life experiences of community members.

Author

• Giovanni P Dazzo, George Mason University