Constructions of meaning in performance ethnography: the individual researcher as collaborator. Reflecting on Alice Hoy is Not a Building

This paper builds on four years of collaborative research using performance ethnography as a vehicle for enquiry into the lives of women educators at a University. The project focused on the nature and challenges of performance ethnography as a research methodology for drama educators, while also exploring the lived experiences of women as staff and students of a large Australian University. This collaborative project was a response to the burgeoning interest in ‘the deeply intertwined relationship between doing ethnography and producing artistic work’ (Goldman, 2007: 832). The researchers considered ‘performance ethnography’ as an orientation to research directly related to the skills and experiences of drama educators and theatre makers, which of them were. From the outset, the researchers were drawn to Conquergood’s vision of ‘performance ethnography’ as a way of knowing and a mode of understanding, as well as a method of critical inquiry (1991: 187). After a sustained focus, in prior presentations and publications on the collaborative nature of ethnographic research as performance, and the associated challenges and tensions of working within that nexus, this paper seeks to explore the experience of the individual within a collaborative research and performance-making project