Creative teamwork: Developing rapid, site-switching ethnography
Pat Armstrong
Book, 2018
Armstrong, P., & Lowndes, R. (2018). Creative teamwork: Developing rapid, site-switching ethnography. Oxford University Press.
Creative Team Work: Developing Rapid, Site-Switching Ethnography is much more than a description of a new way of doing rapid ethnography to capture the rich complexity and contradictions of social relations, although it is certainly that. It is about the imagination, stimulation, and reflection that can come with international, interdisciplinary teams sharing the development, application, analysis, and dissemination of research. Although the book is based on a large, seven-year project studying care homes to search for promising practices and is guided by feminist political economy, the lessons we have learned are relevant for everyone undertaking empirical investigation. All research needs to consider theory, the organization of information, ethics, and dissemination, for example. The specific techniques and approaches we discuss can be applied to a wide range of qualitative methods and are not exclusive to this kind of ethnography. By dissecting our experiences together and uniting chapters through the theme of creative, reflexive team work, the book considers issues and methods of interest to all those struggling through the research process, with or without team support. Although some of our strategies may not work for everyone, and some did not work for us, we have identified areas that need to be addressed in research projects big and small, especially in those interested in putting research to work for change.