BOOK: Doing Team Ethnography: Warnings and Advice

Lone wolf ethnography has its place, but it also has significant scientific limitations. Team ethnography is a viable alternative, but it comes with numerous practical challenges... more»

Each piece of knowledge that either member of the team acquires speeds up the learning of the other or others. If this is accepted enthusiastically, without rivalry, then any team of whatever composition, but especially one contrasted in sex or age, will be able to do, not twice, but four or five times as much work as one person working alone. However, differential self-esteem and competitiveness are very likely to accompany any field work. (Margaret Mead, 1970, p. 326)