Abstract

This chapter explores the importance of collaboration in ethnographic research and the variety of ways in which collaboration plays out, including but not limited to team ethnography. The importance of interdisciplinarity as a key factor driving collaborative research in linguistic ethnography is identified, providing a space for researchers from different backgrounds to work together. Three different kinds of relationships which are important in linguistic ethnography are identified: the relation of the researcher to academia and interdisciplinary research, the relation of the researcher to participants in the field and the relation of the researcher to non-academics in impact and outreach work. Each of these involves different aspects of collaboration, and the chapter identifies their strengths and challenges. The importance of collaboration in linguistic ethnography is then illustrated with reference to a range of case studies, showing how important the relationship between researcher, co-researchers and participants was in each for developing understandings of the field under study. The chapter highlights the importance of collaboration in enabling linguistic ethnographic research to achieve social impacts, while recognising the demands associated with partnership working.