Presenting research as a libretto

Abstract

This article details a data inscription method I have termed ethnomusical libretto. The method evolved from three years of ethnographic fieldwork examining the workplace culture and practice of the global musical theatre industry. Through the process of analysing and coding data, I began to explore the possibility of writing up my data as a libretto, as an effective way to both ‘show’ and ‘tell’ what I had seen and experienced as a participant/observer in the musical theatre industry. I also saw value for writing up ethnographic data as a libretto in order to employ it as a device for member checking. This method contributes to a thickening of data and provides not only an alternate way to conceive research findings but also an opportunity to refine and confirm research claims.