Recent methodological moves toward post-qualitative forms of research have “shaken the tree” regarding formulaic approaches to qualitative inquiry (e.g., see St. Pierre, 2018, 2021; Tesar, 2021). Coupled with the increasing theoretical salience of posthumanism and new materialisms, and the urgency of work on de-colonising, these challenges are (arguably) requiring all qualitative researchers in education to re-examine the ontological bases of their projects. While critical ethnography is not a post-qualitative approach to research, we are inspired by the arguments of post-qualitative researchers to think critical ethnography differently. At the same time, we are cognizant of the important history of ethnographic approaches to research, and commitments in the field to balancing theory with context, deep relationalities, and empirical reflexivities. Rethinking critical ethnography - as some researchers are already doing (e.g Patti Lather, Helena Pedersen, Justin Coles, Nik Taylor, Anna Hickey-Moody, ) might require education ethnographers to embrace lost practices and practices of getting lost. All ethnographers are lost. We lose our way in the very beginning: in the entangled forest of questions and concerns, at the intersection of emotions, in the demands of fieldwork, in searching for ‘proper’ academic questions. We are lost in the deep mud of the field, and then, in the writing and rewriting, in the maze of analysis, in ontological uncertainty. Patti Lather (2007) argues that doing (critical) ethnography might be about getting lost. She challenges researchers to move beyond a position of ‘knowing’ toward one of greater uncertainty and questioning, while not losing completely a hold on issues of equity and politics. Getting lost then might also require inquiry into the political-historical bases of questions, contexts and ethnography’s problematic anthropological and colonising roots.

In this presentation, I draw on a new book to make the case for a reimagined approach to critical ethnography in education. The paper draws on both theoretical and empirical examples to explore future possibilities for ethnography in education.

I argue that a re-imagined approach to critical ethnography in education needs to attend both to new critiques and theoretical moves but also honour ethnography’s pasts. Ultimately, critical ethnography's attention to people and environments, experience and histories, voices and the unspoken, discourse and materiality— might offer a methodological way forward in this current moment if we are willing to get lost in the difficult onto-epistemological challenges of the posts while also attending to issues of social justice and equity.

Biesta, G. J. (2015). Beautiful risk of education. Routledge Delamont, S., & Atkinson, P. (2018). The ethics of ethnography. In The Sage handbook of qualitative research ethics (pp. 119–132). Sage. Fitzpatrick, K., & May, S. (2022). Critical ethnography and education: Theory, methodology and ethics. Routledge. Lather, P. (2007). Getting lost: Feminist efforts toward a double(d) science. State University of New York (SUNY) Press. St. Pierre, E. A. (2018). Writing post qualitative inquiry. Qualitative Inquiry, 24(9), 603–608. Tesar, M. (2021). Some thoughts concerning post-qualitative methodologies. Qualitative Inquiry, 27(2), 223–227. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800420931141