Is it auto-qual, we-qual, mass-qual, or crowdsourced qual?
There is a growing trend for researchers to recruit customers/consumers/citizens to collaborate in the research process. One example is where smartphones are used to facilitate people capturing slices of their own lives, in pictures, videos, and comments. Another example was the Mass Observation project that utilised hundreds of people in the UK, between the 1930s and the 1960s, to capture their own story and the stories of the people around them. I think it would be useful to be able to refer generically to these forms of qualitative research, but there seems to already a wide range of terms, including: Mass anthropology Mass ethnography Auto-anthropology Auto-ethnography Auto-qual Crowdsourced qual We-research We-qual What are your thoughts? Would an umbrella term for these participative/collaborative qual approaches be useful? If so, what would your choice be?