Multiple Research Roles in Video-Reflexive Ethnolography

Abstract

Hospital-based video-reflexive ethnography (VRE) is a collaborative visual methodology used by researchers and/or health professionals to understand, interpret, and optimize health professionals’ work practices and patients’ experiences. For more than a decade, the VRE methodology has spread throughout (research) institutions and hospitals internationally, and VRE has evolved and broadened. Different ways of doing VRE have implications for the role of the researcher. A thorough examination of the consequences for the researcher’s position is the central focus of this article. We outline three typical styles of researcher engagement with VRE: clinalyst, affect-as-method, and planned obsolescence. We argue that by examining these different styles of doing VRE research, academic researchers can then critically review and carefully choose which styles of VRE research best meet the needs of their research questions, their field relationships, their disciplinary background, and the expectations of their clinical research collaborators.