Ethno‐experiments: creating robust inquiry and futures

Abstract

This article introduces a practice‐centred inquiry method called an ‘ethno‐experiment’. The method is built on a social constructionist understanding of practice as a social performance rather than as an individual’s act. Additionally, it draws on Garfinkel’s early ethnomethodological work and Marshall’s self‐reflective inquiry to construct a method of inquiry that centres on practice development rather than knowledge output. Having described the conceptual forbears of ethno‐experiments and discussed the significant aspects of the practice, the article then examines ethno‐experiments using an account of a particular series of these experiments used in work with a major engineering company. Finally, issues of quality in practice and assessment are discussed before it is argued that ethno‐experiments provide three benefits to practitioner‐inquirers: an enriched dialogue between theory and practice; the robust testing and evaluation of emergent practice; and the development of a scholarship of practice.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the funding provided by Advantage West Midlands (AWM) in support of the research with Premier Engineering. She also wishes to acknowledge the contribution of her colleagues Joy Batchelor and Martina Eberle in that work.

Notes

1. I apologise for the cumbersome nature of the term ‘study‐development‐change’, but it points to the important issue that a practice‐centred inquiry will inevitably not involve merely a distanced, academic study of a practice, but also that practice being developed and that development will, again inevitably, involve change. For the remainder of this article, I will use the term ‘inquiry’ to capture these linked activities.

2. See Alvesson and Sköldberg (2000), Gergen (1994) or Reason and Bradbury (2001) for different critiques of modernist research aspirations.