Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print.
In this paper, two researchers with backgrounds in ethnography describe and reflect on their experiences from a qualitative, transnational study called ‘Back to the Future: Archiving in Residential Children’s Homes (ARCH) in Scotland and Germany. Important goals of the study are the investigation and development of digital community archives for young people, care workers and care leavers from residential homes in order to support their memories of shared everyday life. Methodologically, the study is based on ideas of participatory research in combination with ethnographic elements, although there were some changes in the implementation compared to the original plan. These changes were made on the basis of conditions found in the field and represented attempts to achieve the goals of the study despite some unexpected situations and developments. This resulted in moments of tension, which we reflect on self-critically in this article. Using the example of our research, we highlight some of the opportunities and challenges of qualitative study designs that seek to understand and change realities in the context of social work.