Using video diaries in educational ethnography: what being alone with a camera does for self-representation, trust, and affording a participant perspective

Video diaries are an innovative tool for ethnographic research, contributing to the quality of fieldwork and ethnographic data by giving additional attention to participant voices. Grounded in two fieldwork periods in secondary and higher education, this paper illustrates three key qualities through which video diaries contributed to ethnographic research: (1) Building trusting relationships with participants, (2) providing a space for participant autonomy, and (3) being a medium of self-explication and truth-telling. In video diaries, participants exercised free speech, providing a widely unmediated, personal perspective on their professional identity, roles, and relationships. This personal perspective allowed participants to contribute to trusting on their own terms, which mitigated face-work–especially when talking about conflicts and challenges–and provided additional entry points for conversations, enabling deep dialogue and understanding. Ultimately, the use of video diaries significantly strengthened the researcher-participant relationship and enriched the ethnographic data and the quality of interactions.