Ethnographic fingerprints: Examining co-participation, positionality, and interpersonal relationships in diary method

Abstract

While rarely employed 20 years ago, solicited diaries have gained popularity, albeit remaining somewhat on the periphery of human geography methods. Creativity has also expanded in both diary formats and research relationships. My diary method combined long-term ethnographic fieldwork with co-participation, producing rich detail and complex negotiations of intimacy, reciprocity, and power. This article examines these dynamics through my research relationships, focusing on how co-participation revealed the nitty-gritty elements of positionality, including personality and navigating intersectional identities. I call their lasting influence on fieldwork, data, and interpretation an ‘ethnographic fingerprint’. This discussion of positionality and reflexivity in diary methods is rare, as is my self-reflexive context of cross-racial fieldwork between a black researcher and white participants.