As a case study based on fieldwork, ethnography is, by nature, interwoven with the processes of collective interpretation and collaboration between researcher and researched. Yet reflection on this topic only emerged in the late 20th century. These new critical perspectives emphasise both the mode and the consequences of collaboration and collective understanding. Their results are decisive factors for participative practices in both anthropology and museums.

 
Over the past two decades, collaborative ethnography (kollaboratív etnográfia) has enjoyed special attention within anthropological thinking, including both methodological and theoretical considerations. The emphasis has been placed on the moral issues of authorship and the utilisation of collaborative methods to achieve a good ethnography (Lassiter 2005a; Rappaport 2008: 1).
 
The concept and the methodology
 
The literature distinguishes the concept of collaboration from other closely related, yet in many ways dissimilar phenomena. The main focus for communication is mutual understanding or some form of shared meaning, for coordination it is the synchronisation of different existing skills; cooperation highlights adaptation to a given mode of operation, but collaboration places the emphasis on collective creation (Denise 1999). It is important to stress that although consultation, which is often present in anthropological and museum work, is a step towards collaboration, the two are not identical, since they assume a different kind of relationship and authority (Schultz 2011: 11).
 
The term collaborator was first used in 1802 by British philosopher and political scientist Jeremy Bentham (1748‒1832) to describe the participation of multiple actors in artistic or scientific work. The word collaboration first appeared in print in 1860 in a piece by English author Charles Reade (1812‒1884) on the collective authorship of theatre plays.
 
Collaborative ethnography can be defined as the creative collaboration and sharing of authority between researchers working on cultural interpretation and the subjects of their research. In an ideal case, this process permeates anthropological research as a whole: it is present in all stages of fieldwork (this is an earlier focus) as well as in the writing of ethnographic texts or the creation of other productions (such as exhibitions) (Lassiter 2005b: 84).  
The phenomenon of collaborative ethnography has accompanied anthropological fieldwork from the very beginning: the collaboration of researcher and research subject and their mutual participation in the interpretative process are indispensible for cultural understanding. However, as a new, critical approach, collaborative ethnography emphasises collaboration at every stage of the ethnographic process (Lassiter 2005a: 16, 72). The phenomenon was already pronouncedly present and reflected upon in the work of Franz Boas, one of anthropology’s founding fathers, who received critical information from George Hunt, his key Native American informant. From the 1980s onwards, numerous activist anthropologists working in Africa have consciously employed this intense, collective creative process, which has also characterised Latin American anthropology for several decades. However, collaborative ethnography only became a central methodological issue in anthropology in the last few years (Lassiter 2005a: 46).
 
Collaboration presumes that participants consider and accept the other’s presence and their contribution to anthropological interpretation: the goal is to generate new knowledge collectively. For this, participants have to assess each other’s position, significance, impact, and role, consider its compatibility with their own, and take compromises, consequences, gains, and losses into account.
 
It is important that every stakeholder should benefit from the collaboration (Phillips 2003: 159). Although new knowledge is generated, respect should still be paid to the source and users of every other form of knowledge. The principle is similar to Paolo Frerire’s idea of radical and democratic learning: each participant contributes their equally relevant knowledge to the final result (Ibid.: 162).
 
Collaboration is present at every stage of anthropological work, but it can fulfil various roles, and has received varying degrees of attention and emphasis in different eras of anthropology. Until the 1960s, personal connection and collective interpretation were the most dominant issues. The intensity and duration of the personal relationship between researcher and researched determined the content of collective interpretation. For a long time, this collaborative format was considered to be an inherent feature of anthropological research. Collaboration first came to play a key role in early cognitive anthropology in the late 1960s, with the differentiation between emic and etic approaches (Lassiter 2005a: 22‒23). The contrast between internal and external interpretation and description necessitated a confrontation with often radically different worlds and a clarification of the way these worlds relate to and communicate with each other. In other words, perspectivism appeared in anthropological theory, alongside the question of how this would affect the collaboration that develops during fieldwork.
 
It is the space and attention given to alternative interpretative forms that differentiates collaborative ethnography from participant observation. Collaborative ethnography essentially refers to the space in which collective interpretative descriptions are created (Rappaport 2008: 2); it is a shared, common conceptual toolkit. The focus is therefore not so much on collective analysis, but rather on collectively establishing the research project’s theoretical foundations (Ibid.: 5), often rooted in non-Western traditions and non-academic contexts. In this sense, collaboration transforms data collection (fieldwork) into a process of collective conceptualisation (Ibid.: 13).  
Collaborative research can thus be contrasted with so-called objective anthropology that does not require a shared interpretation, or with comparative methodology that thinks not so much in terms of ethnographies, but rather in terms of data collected from various locations. Conversely, collaborative ethnography uses the methodology of symmetric anthropology that puts the anthropologist on an equal footing with other participants in the interpretative process (Campregher 2010). This attitude shows the effect of science and technology studies (STS) and actor network theory (ANT). Bruno Latour’s symmetric anthropology, which gives the same treatment to every participant in a given actor network, is also applicable to the participants of collaborative ethnography, the specific knowledge they each have, material cultures, and the languages they use (Ibid.).
 
The encounter of disparate knowledge, experiences, and perspectives does not necessarily result in a new approach, nor does it necessarily become part of academic practice. In other words, these experiments are not always successful, they are often fragile, and a lot depends on the quality of relationships (trust, stability) (Sandberg et al. 2015: 4; Lassiter 2005a: 149).
 
In the second half of the 20th century, collaborative ethnography also received increased critical attention in the framing, writing, publication, and exhibition of collectively created cultural interpretations. Since the writing culture debate (Clifford‒Marcus 1986), the ethnographic text has consciously reflected on the presence and role of the author. Although there are exceptions (such as autobiographies), the majority of ethnographic texts are still written by anthropologists. However, according to theoreticians of collaborative ethnography, it does not necessarily have to be this way (Lassiter 2005a, 2005b). Collaboration and the equality of participants can be extended to the writing process and to the creation of exhibitions or other interpretations. This normative expectation is based on two types of argument, one ethical or moral, the other pragmatic. It is not ethical to exclude former partners from the writing process (McSherry 2001), as this would designate the anthropologist as the sole person with the right to decide what is included in the text. Furthermore, collective writing can generate knowledge that is different from and often deeper than what can be achieved by traditional interpretative formats (Ibid.).
 
It seems that the research process and the publication of results assume a different relationship between researcher and research subject: the role of authority changes. (Hangartner 2007: 45‒46). Fieldwork calls for a significant financial input and a lot of time: a privilege not everyone can afford (this is the neo-colonial aspect of fieldwork). However, the situation is not so simple when it comes to information (Ibid.: 48). The researcher is actually at the mercy of the research subjects who can communicate whatever information or knowledge they please, in any way they see fit. They can also have a significant amount of control over the researcher’s access to events. Real authority, however, lies in the circumstances of framing and publishing the ethnographic text (Rabinow 1986) that describes and thereby also represents and interprets others. This often remains unchanged by experimental, dialogic, or multivocal practices (Hangartner 2007: 48), but radical forms of collaborative ethnography seek to find ways to include every participant in decision-making at all stages of the process, including writing and publication (Lassiter 2005a, 2005b).
 
The ethnography of collaboration
 
In the anthropology of the last few decades, collaboration has not only featured as an issue in fieldwork methodology but also as a phenomenon to be observed in the cases under scrutiny. As American anthropologist Anna Tsing writes, “the social subjects of environmentalism are as collaboratively formed as the natural objects” (2005: 249). Anthropological research into everyday collaboration can also prove useful for collaborative ethnography as a method: knowledge gained this way can be channelled back into ethnographic research or the operation of anthropological institutions and museums.  
In global relations, groups or individuals are often involved in collective projects through boundary objects or, as Tsing calls them, collaborative objects (Tsing 2005: 246). These objects are shared by the group and they can hold participants together as much as set them apart. They conjoin divergent perspectives (coupling) with overlapping differences. This may not be the generally accepted view of collaboration, yet Tsing argues that this is its most productive format. It is a type of collaboration in which participants can be similar as well as diverse. They may or may not have a shared understanding of the product, the result, the problem, and each other (Tsing 2005: 246), yet their differences and friction play a central role in maintaining collaboration.
 
Museums and collaboration
 
The most fundamental issues in anthropological collaboration are currently centred on results, or the knowledge generated by the relationship between researcher and researched, which most often means the ethnographic text. This framework, however, is gradually expanding to include exhibitions (see Lassiter 2005a: 143) and collaboration as a topic can be an element in the research process as well (see Tsing 2005). The principle of symmetry explains why the approach has been broadened: there are no longer any privileged scenes, spaces, actors; collaboration (as in the circulation of knowledge in an open museum) no longer has any spatial or temporal limits. This circulation not only brings objects and different types of knowledge into the museum, but turns the museum itself into a field (Fienup‒Riordan 2003; Silva‒Gordon 2013) that constantly generates new forms of knowledge and interpretation.
 
Museum collaboration is basically the collective work of institutions (museums) and communities to create new knowledge through the research and exhibition of objects and collections (Schultz 2011: 1). One the one hand, this facilitates the community’s access to museum collections, while on the other, it generates novel content that is also significant from the institution’s perspective. This is not only a methodological shift. It also entails a change in the museum’s self-image: how can it simultaneously fulfil its institutional tasks and the community’s needs? An important change in this regard came about with the appearance of new museology and the first experiments with its application in the late 1980s and early 1990s (McCall‒Gray 2013).
 
When collaboration fails in the museum context, it is usually the result of conflict between different levels, actors, and interests within the museum itself, and a lack of means (collaborative practices) to tackle them. Effective approaches would require the kind of collaboration that is characteristic of collaborative ethnography, and enables participants to create new meanings and interpretations. Yet similar problems to the ones that plague collaboration within the institution and amongst participants are also present within collaborating communities or groups, a fact that the museum is not always aware of. Participative museum projects often entertain the idea that external partners automatically represent the local community. They rarely reflect on what the local community means, who its members are, how participants relate to it, and what is the system of representation within community and museum (Onciul 2013; Lonetree 2012). The biggest challenge in collaborative practices is the lack of a shared, ‘single voice’ that unites all participants. Yet if both sides are sufficiently reflective, then successful collaboration is by no means impossible (Blain‒Wallis 2008: 11).
 
Local museums have a special role in museum-based collaboration. Their significance in representing local or indigenous identities is often emphasised, yet the way they actually operate on a local level is rarely studied. This would necessitate looking behind the concept of representation and examining the way knowledge is controlled: how does knowledge transfer happen; what are the expectations in terms of historical narratives? Is it possible to mediate between internal and external perspectives (Isaac 2007: 15)?
 
There are several different models that describe collaboration in anthropological museums. Approaches based on the ideas of hybridity, middle ground, or the contact zone often use textual analysis as their starting point. However, the way knowledge is transferred and the issue of control are relegated to the background. Although these models show the intermingling and conflict of disparate perspectives and ideologies, they are not so apt at revealing the dynamic processes of compromising and decision-making that precede the actual encounter (Ibid.: 16‒17). Similarly, the idiosyncrasies of oral tradition, which play a central role in local culture, are not given sufficient emphasis and attention. Museum research, following the contact zone model, usually focuses on the intersections of cultures and downplays “the vernacular modes for selecting, discarding, or retaining ideology and practices” (Ibid.: 17).
 
For the analysis of these complex processes, mediation might prove to be a better interpretative framework than the contact zone (Ibid.). This concept pays more attention to the decisions and control mechanisms coordinating between different standpoints, meanings, perspectives, and interests. Furthermore, as mediation is present in every culture in one form or another (Ibid.: 17), it can help us understand the dynamics of cultural translation on both the micro and the macro level.  

The exhibition or archiving of cultural materials (photographs, objects, texts) related to indigenous people ‒ or, in a broader sense, to local communities ‒ is a complicated process due to the presence of numerous different perspectives vis-à-vis objects. A lack of clarification in this domain can impede the collaboration. For the stakeholder community, it is important to know who handles their objects and who, how and when, has access to documentation and information, and whether in the museum context, their materials are treated as passive objects of the past or as living entities with a role in the present. The situation is no less complicated when archival and collection materials are overseen and curated by a community member (Brown 2003: 32‒33). Can the objects be touched by women or only men? Can they be seen by a non-tribe member or by a member of another tribe? Can they be seen by an uninitiated person, a woman, or a child?  

With all museum-based collaborative projects, the most important question to bear in mind is whether indigenous, marginalised communities or those living on the peripheries are happy to participate in global flows and exchange or would prefer to be left out of them. To what extent does the hybrid makeup of communities aid this process and make it more advantageous and desirable (Brown 2003: 248)? How are communities best included in collaboration: through the paternalist protection of the given nation or state or under the universal web of heritage? And finally, how and to what extent can we tighten the relationship between museum-based, ethnographic, and everyday collaboration?
 
Gábor Wilhelm