Finding Agency in Reciprocity: A Story of Learning

Abstract

This essay considers the relationship between ethnography, reciprocity, and agency in teaching and learning. Starting with the early articulation of reciprocal ethnography defined by Dr. Elaine Lawless and following the trajectory of her scholarship of reciprocity, the author focuses particularly on the social justice promise of creating dialogical spaces through reciprocity and begins to explore what this may mean for creating new critical understandings about extant cultural social narratives. This is further considered in light of the enactment of reciprocal pedagogy, which, when extended with an aim toward progressive educational goals, centers inquiry which can disrupt normative authority through diverse perspectives. Engaging the powerful assertion that folk arts education can produce a Freirian ([1970] 2005) space of conscientização, or critical consciousness, the examples illustrate the potential for the sharing of analytical and interpretative power in order to create a fissure in the hierarchical world that chronically ascribes discursive power and agency to a limited cohort. Recognizing the relationship between reciprocal ethnography and agency proves liberatory in both classrooms and communities.