Performance ethnography as a method for the critical investigation of direct social work practice
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21724632 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Yuval Saar-Heiman (0000-0002-8283-6869, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 577-594 |
| Publication date | 2025-09-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Qualitative Social Work (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1473-3250 • E-ISSN: 1741-3117 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/14733250251324996 |
| OpenAlex | W4408145341 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 40 |
Norman Denzin was a major force in developing performance ethnography as a critical, social justice-oriented form of qualitative inquiry worldwide. In this article, I illustrate and conceptualize how performance ethnography, as Denzin developed it, is an excellent fit for research and teaching on direct social work practice. The article revolves around a performance ethnography titled “Yuval, You Decide” that presents both the evolution and utilization of the performance and the performance itself—a detailed script of a high-risk crisis intervention of which I was part as a social work practitioner at a child protection community center. Based on the performative text, I present four contributions that performance ethnography can offer to research on direct social work practice: highlighting and conceptualizing the complexity of practice, evoking and producing experiential and embodied knowledge, accessing the micropolitics of practice, and opening a space for the coproduction of knowledge
Critical ethnography · Engineering ethics · Epistemology · Ethnography · Political science · Sociology · Anthropology · Engineering · Participatory Visual Research Methods · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Work Education and Practice · Theatre and Performance Studies · Social Work
Performance Autoethnography
Making home visits
Social Working
Poverty metaphors
Reflections on the thoughts of Norman Denzin
The white light vibrations of Norman K. Denzin
A garden of compassion…In memory of Norman K. Denzin
Applications of Performance Ethnography in Nursing
A critical performance pedagogy that matters
Conceptualizing critical practice in social work
Lost wants? An autoethnography of class and ethnicity on the long path to higher education
Poverty‐aware social work in the child protection system
The Poverty-Aware Paradigm for Child Protection
You Decide’
Bridge over Troubled Water—Closing the Research–Practice Gap in Social Work
Innovation and the Practice of Social Work Research
Home Visits in Social Work
From Snapshots of Practice to a Movie
Embodied Practice
Social Work in the Seventh Moment
Power and Social Work in the United Kingdom
The Call to Performance
Ethical Autoethnography
Performing Ethnography
Tales of Conde
Learning to See at the Intersections of Body, Gender, Geography, and Nationality
Disaffiliating From the Cult of the Fallen
Critical Social Work
Between Silence and Speech
| Highly cited | No |
|---|