“Can you recommend a critical reading on the concept of going native?” – This seemingly simple question from one of our students during a seminar of educational science on ethnographic research alerted us to the fact that we were unable to find critical literature on the concept of going native (which describes the researcher’s adaptation to what is being researched). Instead, we only found literature that reproduced the so-called “risk” (Breidenstein et al. 2015, p. 109) that ethnographic researchers might become ‘too similar’ to the field they are researching. Given this circumstance, we decided to write a paper ourselves in which we critically examine methodological manuals and our own research practice in the context of migration and refugee studies (Plöger & Runge 2021). In our talk, we will focus on three main aspects:

1) We discuss (post)colonial entanglements in ethnographic research and explore the question of what knowledge is made relevant in migration research.

2) By critically reflecting on our own positionalities as ethnographers in migration research, we question how we can responsibly deal with the knowledge, perspectives and voices that we encounter in the research process and how postcolonial discourses and knowledge can be integrated into the research process in order to disrupt colonial practices and the continuous reproduction of hegemonic knowledge.

3) We ask ourselves how we can bring our experiences into our teaching and engage in dialogue with our students, recognizing that they can bring important perspectives, as the example of the beginning shows.

First, we will introduce the problem that prominent methodological manuals on ethnography and (reflexive) grounded theory still contain and reproduce concepts such as the going native (Breidenstein et al. 2015) and the adventure narrative (Breuer et al. 2019). Both of these concepts stem from colonialism, when Europeans colonized territories and ‘researched’ them, which formed the basis of the legitimization of colonial practices such as exploitation, harassment, and genocide. Nevertheless, we consider methods of both ethnography and reflexive grounded theory suitable for investigating social action – especially in migration research. How then, can we use these methods responsibly without falling prey to (post)colonial entanglements?

Given this question, in a second part, we address our own involvement in the research process. As ethnographic researchers, we actively produce and construct the data. This calls for a special reflection on our role as white researchers with German passports, on the knowledge we make relevant and the voices and perspectives that are (not) incorporated in our research. By giving very concrete examples form our own research processes, we discuss potentials as well as challenges and failures of ethnographic research in migration research. We search for alternative ways of producing knowledge such as strategies of subversive listening (Castro Varela & Dhawan 2003) and authorised writing (Kaltmeier 2012; Rufer 2012). We explore the methodological possibilities of a critical ethnography in a reflexive relationship to (post)colonial traditions without denying the limitations of overcoming global asymmetrical power relations.

In a third part we look at our teaching: We discuss how to teach ethnographic research methods without reproducing postcolonial entanglements or at least aim to confront them. We advocate for making these very entanglements transparent and discussing them productively with students. Nevertheless, we also need to address students who have not yet had contact with postcolonial theories. As concepts such as research-based learning become increasingly relevant, we believe it is necessary to equip students not only with research methods but also with critical reflexivity. Taking them along on our own learning process and seeing them as a serious reflection is a way to make our teaching authentic and productive.

Ethnography and (R)GT, which are qualitative social research methods, have three main similarities: they focus on social action and its processes, take into account the subjectivity of the person conducting the research (Breidenstein et al. 2015; Breuer et al. 2019), and are not (only) methods, but also a "research style [...] and methodological instruments" (Breuer et al. 2019, p. 16) as well as an "integrated research approach" (Breidenstein et al. 2015, p. 34). This ensures openness of design and allows methods to be selected and adapted to the research in a field-sensitive manner. Wanting to research social action inevitably leads the researcher to ethnography, as the instrument of participant observation forms the core of the ethnographic research approach (Breidenstein et al. 2015, p. 34). In the combination of these research styles we see potentials for our own PhD projects: By focusing on social action in our research context, we see the opportunity to make practices visible that are not (or cannot be) verbalized. Often, the precariousness of the topics does not allow for verbalization or the mutual understanding of what is said is made difficult by different linguistic socializations. We do not understand the actions of the actors in isolation, but always embedded in thought patterns, structures and action logics of organizations, institutions or pedagogical fields of action, which shape the social actions of the employees, but also of the students and users of social support systems. Since this mostly happens unconsciously, such patterns of thought, structures and logics of action cannot (always) be verbalized (Clarke 2012, p. 213). This is the reason why we try to capture the social actions of the actors through participant observation. In our research contexts, especially the participation in the everyday life of the actors enables us to build trust and create routines (e.g. through certain research days that we were present). Participating in the classroom and in the institutionalized spaces of homelessness assistance respectively implied that we built up a certain closeness to actors of our research fields and thus became no longer just 'external' observers, but involved researchers in what was happening. What this means in relation to our role as researchers can be reflected upon by means of (R)GT, which focuses on the reflection on presuppositions and the involvement of the researcher. In this sense, “reflexivity includes self-reflection but also social reflection” (Plöger & Barakos 2021).

Again, we'd like to start with a quote from one of our students: "I don't understand why so much of the work is about reflection when it's really about objectively describing what I observe." We encounter the myth of the objective researcher repeatedly and regularly in our seminars in pedagogy. We uncover this myth by making the historical lines of research practices visible. Understanding that research itself is enmeshed in realities – those of the researcher, those of the researched, those of the field – often helps students gain a new or different perspective on scientific texts. Here, too, Reflexive Grounded Theory with its assumption of researchers' own embeddedness in their research settings can be an aid to reflection (Breuer et al. 2019, p. 83ff.). In addition to this broadening of perspective, with the help of subversive listening and authorized writing, we seek to explore together with students ways in which actual research practice can be shaped, including in the context of final papers and student research projects. The inclusion of different types of data and text forms enables diverse perspectives on the object of research and can thus contribute to a triangulating presentation of results in the transcription. In doing so, we focus primarily on the concept of responsibility, what it means to do research in the context of flight*migration and their intersections.

•Breidenstein, G., Hirschauer, S., Kalthoff, H. & Nieswand, B. (2015). Ethnografie. Die Praxis der Feldforschung (2. Aufl.). Konstanz: UVK (UTB Sozialwissenschaften, Kulturwissenschaften, 3979). •Breuer, F., Muckel, P. & Dieris, B. (2019). Reflexive Grounded Theory. Eine Einführung für die Forschungspraxis. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22219-2. •Castro Varela, M. d. M. & Dhawan, N. (2003). Postkolonialer Feminismus und die Kunst der Selbstkritik. In H. Steyerl & E. Gutiérrez Rodríguez, E. (ed.), Spricht die Subalterne deutsch? Migration und postkoloniale Kritik (270–290). Münster: Unrast. •Clarke, A. E. (2012). Situationsanalyse. Grounded Theory nach dem Postmodern Turn.; ed. R. Keller. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-531-93320-7. •Kaltmeier, O. (2012). Methoden dekolonialisieren. Reziprozität und Dialog in der herrschenden Geopolitik des Wissens. In O. Kaltmeier, & S. Corona Berkin, S. (ed.), Methoden dekolonialisieren. Eine Werkzeugkiste zur Demokratisierung der Sozial- und Kulturwissenschaften (18–44). Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot. •Plöger, S. & Barakos, E. (2021). Researching linguistic transitions of newly-arrived students in Germany: insights from Institutional Ethnography and Reflexive Grounded Theory, Ethnography and Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/17457823.2021.1922928. •Plöger, S. & Runge, P. (2021). Kritische Ethnografie in der Flucht*Migrationsforschung. Zur Herausforderung des Zuhörens und der Verschriftlichung. In M. Bach, L. Narawitz, J. Schroeder, M. Thielen & N.-M. Thönneßen (ed.), FluchtMigrationsForschung im Widerstreit. Über Ausschlüsse durch Integration. (187–198). Münster: Waxmann Verlag. •Rufer, M. (2012). Sprechen, zuhören, schreiben. Postkoloniale Perspektiven auf Subalternität und Horizontalität. In ders. (45–70).