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Performed Ethnography

Performed ethnography involves turning ethnographic research findings into play scripts that are read aloud by a group of participants or performed for audiences. The richness of performed ethnography comes from three sources: (1) the ethnographic research from which a play script is created, (2) the reading or performance of the play and (3) the conversations that take place after the reading or performance. In these follow-up conversations, research participants and other readers or audience members have input about the conclusions of the research. This allows for ongoing analysis of the research findings. The incorporation of audience input into ongoing revisions of the play provides an opportunity for mutual analysis and, in so doing, can help create more ethical and participatory relationships between researchers, their research participants and the communities to which the research participants belong. Post-reading/performance conversations about a play also allow researchers to share their findings in classrooms and other public forums. Performed ethnography, then, offers action research a compelling way for research participants to comment on the researchers' understandings and analysis. It also offers action researchers a way to engage a wide variety of audiences in the discussion of their findings.

Defining Performed Ethnography

Performed ethnography is also known as performance ethnography and ethnodrama. Norman Denzin uses the term performance ethnography to refer to performances that ethnographers stage from their interviews and observation field notes. Johnny Saldaña describes an ethnodrama as a dramatic script that consists of significant selections of narrative that have been collected through interviews, observation field notes, journal entries, diaries, media articles and court proceedings. For Saldaña, ethnodrama is different from ethnotheatre, which uses the traditional craft and artistic techniques of theatre production to mount a live performance event of research participants' experiences and/or a researcher's interpretation of data. In ethnotheatre, the fieldwork conducted by a researcher is preparation for a theatrical production.

Like Saldaña, Jim Mienczakowski and Teresa Moore believe that ethnodrama is different from traditional theatrical work. They describe it as a new aesthetic that values the accurate interpretation of research findings over the style, mode and traditions of theatrical presentation. For Mienczakowski, the audiences for ethnodrama work are often composed of those with a close relationship to or lived experience of the themes of the piece, and their anticipation of performance and entertainment are secondary to their expectations of theatrical engagement. The performance is a shared context that actors and audience members co-construct and relate to because of their own emotional links to the topic of the research and/or performance.

Dramatizing Research Findings: Monologue and Dialogue

Performed ethnographers dramatize research findings in a variety of ways. A monologue is an extended, one-person dramatic narrative that provides a portrait of a character based on an actual research participant or set of research participants. Autoethnographic monologues are narratives that are generated by the researchers themselves. Saldaña explains that monologues are composed of particular dramatic elements and structural forms. Knowledge of these enables a researcher to craft a more aesthetically shaped work for the stage. Dialogue consists of two or more characters who engage in verbal action, reaction and interaction and is embedded in a dramatic story. As not every ethnographic study provides the necessary detail for the replication of authentic or verbatim dialogue, performed ethnographers sometimes imaginatively reconstruct dialogue that represents the cultural moments, conflicts and events documented in their studies. Such writing is often called creative non-fiction or ‘faction’ (a blended word from fact and fiction) and raises questions about representation and truth in performed ethnography. Action researchers working with the approach of performed ethnography need to work with research epistemologies and ontologies (theories of knowledge and reality) that are compatible with the creation of creative non-fiction.

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