Doing feminist ethnography collectively

Drawing on the ethnographic experience of the two first authors with a French feminist collective, this chapter explores the pitfalls and possibilities of doing ethnography collectively, from fieldwork to writing. Following feminist thinkers Rachele Borghi and Starhawk, we identify two key objectives for practicing ethnography collectively: embracing discomfort (inhabiting the tensions between researchers to resist dualism and using organizational strategies to resist academic norms) and striving for fairness (to sustain horizontality between researchers). In doing so, we contribute to the existing literature in two directions. First, we discuss the creation of solidarity between feminist scholars by reflecting on ways to do fieldwork collectively and suggesting organizing tools to sustain such projects. Second, we further existing research documenting the role of emotions in feminist research. We argue that emotional work should be symbolically and materially acknowledged alongside the other tasks necessary to produce knowledge.