The Weight of Words: Co-Analysis of Thick Ethnographic Description and “Friction” as Methodological Strategies in a Health Policy Research Partnership

Abstract

Co-production partnerships between policymakers, practitioners, and researchers are designed to facilitate production of relevant and readily usable research in health policy and practice contexts. We describe methodological strategies for in-depth collaborative analysis based on a co-produced ethnography of health promotion practice, involving ethnographic researchers and government-based research partners. We draw on a co-production dialogue to reflect critically on the role and value of co-analyzing research findings using thick ethnographic descriptions. The ambiguity of ethnographic imagery allowed flexibility in interpretation of findings and also generated friction. Specific ethnographic images became focal points for productive friction that crystallized ethical and analytical imperatives underpinning the diverse expertise in the team. To make the most of co-analysis of thick ethnographic descriptions, we assert that friction points must be reflexively considered as key learning opportunities for (a) higher order analysis informed by diverse analytical perspectives and (b) more cohesive and useful interpretations of research findings.

Ethnography in Health Services Research: Oscillation Between Theory and Practice

“…Yet, to contribute in this way, it must be clear when ethnographic methods are used, how they are implemented, and to what ends. While work on health topics more broadly is not a new area of research for anthropologists (i.e., Kleinman, 1980 ; Martin, 2007 ; Rapp, 1999 ; Scheper-Hughes, 1993 ), integrated ethnographic approaches within health services research are still relatively few ( Greenhalgh & Swinglehurst, 2011 ; Loblay et al, 2021 ; Savage, 2000 ). Even rarer are collaborations in which it becomes clear how ethnography can be helpful in this field, what kind of knowledge it specifically produces, and how these findings complement and enrich other forms of assessment.…”

Empowering Communities: Future‐Making through Citizen Ethnography

“…Researchers capture their reflections in writing and then reflect and write again, creating continuous, iterative cycles to develop increasingly robust and nuanced analyses. It is a specific methodology of describing, interpreting, writing, editing, triangulating and validating, and it is rendered more robust when the process is democratised; when the collation, synthesis and analysis of information is co-constructed, contested and shared (Loblay et al 2021;Neubauer, Witkop, and Varpio 2019). Throughout the analysis, researchers must maintain a strong orientation to the phenomenon under study.…”

“…In Kiama, like in most communities, we were immediately confronted with the question of how to pool expertise, funding, and political will to solve complex, interlinked, social and environmental challenges (Sawin 2018) with multiple stakeholders who all had very different cultural orientations (from health, govt, education, business, youth etc). Loblay et al (2021) assert that "friction points" will naturally emerge and "must be reflexively considered as key learning opportunities for (a) higher order analysis informed by diverse analytical perspectives and (b) more cohesive and useful interpretations of research findings" (Loblay et al 2021: 1).…”

Moving Beyond Text-and-Talk in Qualitative Health Research: Methodological Considerations of Using Multiple Media for Data Collection

“…For example, approaches that attempt to get closer from different vantage points to an assumed common “truth” in research differ epistemologically from approaches that see this as ephemeral and that value polyvocality and lack of closure in research (King et al, 2008; Pithouse-Morgan et al, 2014; Thimm et al, 2017). Recently, there has been an interesting discussion on what Loblay et al (2020) refer to as “friction” and its productive uses in research processes. To an extent, there is debate in the literature about surfacing and embracing friction in data collection methods, on one hand, or using multiple data sources even in the same modalities to prove what may be termed a more rounded or smoothed representation of data, on the other hand (Loblay et al, 2020; Ryan-Flood & Gill, 2010).…”

“…Recently, there has been an interesting discussion on what Loblay et al (2020) refer to as “friction” and its productive uses in research processes. To an extent, there is debate in the literature about surfacing and embracing friction in data collection methods, on one hand, or using multiple data sources even in the same modalities to prove what may be termed a more rounded or smoothed representation of data, on the other hand (Loblay et al, 2020; Ryan-Flood & Gill, 2010). These are large and important general questions for research.…”