Everything is Patchwork! A Conversation about Methodological Experimentation with Patchwork Ethnography.

Abstract

This article collectively discusses creative feminist approaches to ethnographic methods developed in response to challenging social, personal, environmental, and temporal conditions and pressures. Patchwork Ethnography, developed by Gökçe Günel, Saiba Varma and Chika Watanabe, recognises mundane pressures, and works with insights and experiences that emerge not only from doing research, but from what happens around the edges. By rendering the many 'seams' of research visible and valuable, their approach aims to develop creative, kind, and more generous - yet no less robust - research realities. Drawing inspiration from Patchwork Ethnography this article takes a creative approach to the craft of conversation, valuing the fragments, drawing attention to edges and intersections of our collective thinking, research, and experiences and stitching them together into a unique patchworked piece. Throughout, in the spirit of the theme of this special issue, we ask what kinds of ethnographic methods can create new and different futures? What are, or could be, feminist futures of ethnography?