QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / March 2000 May, Pattillo-McCoy / COLLABORATIVE ETHNOGRAPHY Do You See What I See? Examining a Collaborative Ethnography Reuben A. Buford May University of Georgia Mary Pattillo-McCoy Northwestern University Although there are increasing examples of collaborative ethnography, there are few explicit reflections on its process. The authors systematically juxtapose their jointly col- lected but separately recorded observations in a neighborhood recreation center in Chi- cago to examine points of similarity and difference. They find that collaborative ethnog- raphy can be useful for providing a richer description, highlighting perceptual inconsistencies, and recognizing the influence of ethnographers’ personal and intellec- tual backgrounds on the collection and recording of data. The authors’ reflexive analysis also illustrates that the choice of collaborators is key for influencing the depth or breadth of the data collected. Finally, they show that there is neither one truth, nor one reality, nor one stable social world to observe. Although many researchers have turned to collaborative ethnography as a way in which to explore a variety of social phenomena, we find that there are few explicit reflections on doing collaborative ethnography or on the system- atic juxtaposition of observations, what caused those particular observations, and their possible interpretations. There are many comparative ethnogra- phies or ethnographic monographs that use a team approach. In fact, the com- parative and team approaches to ethnography have become quite popular, especially in urban sociology, challenging the research done by the lone eth- nographer in his or her exclusive domain (see, e.g., Burawoy et al., 1991; New- man, 1999; Sullivan, 1989; Wilson, 1996). Yet, often these studies are written by one voice (or perhaps two voices) who compiles the data collected by oth- ers to offer his or her realist narrative of social life in the setting(s) under study. 65 Authors’ Note: We thank Alford Young, Jr., and Jolyon Wurr for their comments on an earlier draft of this article. This research was funded by grants from the Ford, MacAr- thur, and Rockefeller Foundations as part of the Comparative Neighborhood Study at the University of Chicago. Send comments to Reuben A. Buford May, Department of Sociology, University of Georgia, Baldwin Hall 117, Athens, GA 30606; e-mail: cmsrmay@arches.uga.edu. Qualitative Inquiry, Volume 6 Number 1, 2000 65-87 © 2000 Sage Publications, Inc.