Democratization and Research: Can Ethnography Save Itself?

With a strategic analysis of the push to “democratize” research—to open the research practice to non‐researchers—this paper charts a path to shape the future value and practice of ethnography. While democratization debates often focus on concerns that it will take jobs away from trained researchers, I focus instead on what democratization looks like in practice and why it is appealing to organizations. I argue that democratization is a window into the changing knowledge practices, value systems, and organization of labor in modern tech environments. Through this lens, I lay out concrete ways ethnographers can have more agency and long‐term influence in our evolving organizational and business contexts.