An Ethnographer’s Attuned Presence: Methodological Reflexivity in the Study of Fathers’ Diabetes Care

Ethnographic research often requires methodological and analytical adaptations in response to participants’ needs, fieldwork settings, and ethical constraints, yet such adaptations often remain implicit in published accounts. Answering a call for increased transparency of methodological journeys, this article examines how these adaptations unfolded in a study of fathers caring for children with type 1 diabetes (T1D) in Greece and Denmark (2023-2024). I conceive of this phenomenon as an attuned presence : an ethnographic approach in which the researcher’s presence, methods, and analytic attention are continually adjusted to make fathers’ experiences knowable. Drawing on interviews, observations, and elicitation methods, the article shows how adapting methods in the field enabled fathers to articulate caregiving practices that often remain unrecognised in both clinical and research settings. Three methodological developments are examined: a tool eliciting parents’ perceptions of caregiving responsibility and burden, the use of fieldnote sketches to capture mundane spatial and interactional arrangements, and reflexive engagement with my own ‘halfie’ positionality as mother and researcher. By making visible how methodological adjustments shape what becomes knowable in ethnographic research, this article contributes to qualitative methodology debates by foregrounding ethnography as a situated, ethical, and responsive practice.