Ethnographic Variations

ABSTRACT Ethnography is not a monolith but a shaggy extended family of research principles and tools that are continually evolving. Our methodological panel aims to explore this reality by illuminating the ethnographic variations that exist across the social sciences, with an eye to their applications in Information Science. The panelists are devotees of these lineages: visual ethnography , sensory ethnography , participatory forms of ethnography, digital ethnography ( netnography ) and multispecies ethnography . To help the audience grasp ethnography's heterogeneity, questions of a defining nature will be posed in turn to the speakers and each will supply a succinct answer from the perspective of their favored tributary. By design, the distinguishing features of each ethnographic variation will come into sharp relief. Following this structured and comparative exchange, a few interactivities will bring attendees into a free‐flowing conversation that enacts the “reflection, debate, and respectful balance” invoked in the Annual Meeting's theme. For example, we will brainstorm other shades of ethnography not yet mentioned; broach the matter of navigating methodological complexity; and air concerns about the shortage of methods training in these niches for students of Information Science. Overall, our panel aims to explore the diversity in play beneath the banner of ethnography and to elevate understanding of ethnography as a spacious, dynamic, multifarious yet welcoming methodological umbrella.