Voice and Meaning-Making in Team Ethnography ANGELA CREESE University of Birmingham ADRIAN BLACKLEDGE University of Birmingham Drawing on research on complementary schools in the United Kingdom, this presentation consid- ers some of the issues in the research method used in studying this after-school community site. Processes of analysis employed by the ethnography team are disclosed so as to illuminate the dynamics of theory building in a large research team. [reflexive language, team ethnography, voice, representation]. In linguistic anthropology and linguistic ethnography our primary task is to make meaning from the speech of others. When we engage in such an endeavor in teams of researchers, the process of meaning-making is both complex and rich with potential. We have previously written accounts of the roles and relationships of teams of ethnogra- phers as they work in collaboration to investigate linguistic practices and identities in multilingual community education settings. Creese and colleagues (2008b) analyzed the use of field notes in team ethnography in complementary schools, while Creese and colleagues (2009) focused their attention on multilingual researcher identities. Creese (2008, 2010, 2011) and Blackledge (2011) have written accounts of linguistic ethnography in action. Blackledge and Creese (2010) gave a developed account of working in a multilingual team of researchers, demystifying the research process and making it acces- sible and understandable to those who teach, study, and research in multilingual edu- cational contexts. In this article we extend that work by asking how teams of researchers negotiate and come to (dis)agreements in the process of making “meaning” out of “data.” That is, how multiple linguistic practices in and out of informal educational settings are synthesized into “research findings.” Indeed, this process of “meaning- making” is often at best implicit, not only in anthropological and educational research but also in social research more generally, whether conducted by individuals or by teams. In this article, we draw on an Economic and Social Research Council–funded project, Investigating Multilingualism in Complementary Schools in Four Communities (Creese et al. 2008a), and set out to analyze the complex process in which a team of researchers engages with data collected in multisite, multilingual educational settings and brings to bear on analysis its different biographies, histories, and ideologies. These are nonstatutory schools run by their local communities, which students attend in order to learn the language normally associated with their ethnic heritage. Adopting an ethnographic approach, the research team put into play their diverse perspectives and sets of beliefs as they investigated community learning spaces. These grassroots institutions had devel- oped with very little government funding. In many ways vulnerable and surviving from hand to mouth, they were nonetheless sites that had a political role in countering the monolingual orientation of mainstream schooling, and providing young people with an opportunity to resist ethnic categories and social stereotypes associated with static identity markers. The nonstatutory schools provided a community resource for young people, parents, and teachers to network and to support positive student learner identities. They Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Vol. 43, Issue 3, pp. 306–324, ISSN 0161-7761, online ISSN 1548-1492. © 2012 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI:10.1111/j.1548-1492.2012.01182.x. 306