Collective Ethnography: Hands On Learning and Applied Research with Undergraduates

• In Event: 20461 - Teaching and Learning Symposium Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 3: Team Teaching/Learning

Abstract

There is a lack of courses which provide hands-on research experiences to undergraduates. In January 2025, I launched a course titled “Collective Ethnography of Digital Platform Work.” The course trains students in ethnographic methods: to be reflexive observers and participants in the world. But instead of spending weeks reading the theory of ethnography, they are mainly learning by doing. They are collecting original data by spending two hours per week actually working on digital platforms; each week they take fieldnotes based on their experiences. Being an ethnographer requires theoretical engagement, too, so students are asked to read and respond to one text per week.
The course is designed as a collective space: somewhere between a laboratory and an artist’s studio. Students are in peer groups of 3 and each week they read and review one of their peers’ fieldnotes. In class, we are constantly discussing each others’ fieldwork: obstacles, insights, and future directions. Students are getting good at encouraging each other, and learning from each others’ journeys.
At the end of the semester, students will have produced over 20 pages of single-spaced fieldnotes, dozens of pages of jottings, and a final paper that reflects on their experience becoming an ethnographer, and becoming a platform worker. Instead of seeing this as an artifact that goes away in a drawer, the question becomes: what do we do with this data? Students are encouraged to find public venues for a version of their final paper: a podcast, a blog post. Second, they are offered a chance to contribute their data to future academic research. Finally, some of them might be interested in co-authoring a paper. How can this model of “collective ethnography” be further developed?

Author

• David C Joseph-Goteiner, University of California-Berkeley