Paper short abstract:

Drawing upon ethnographic research on gift exchange in Catalonia, this paper seeks to explore the implications of filming-whilst-interviewing children and on interview processes as instances of ‘wandering’ both in terms of relations and in terms of imagined spaces during the ethnographic encounter.

Paper long abstract:

I want to consider the possibility of looking at the anthropological interview from an 'altermodern' preposition in order to consider the interview as a form of 'wandering' and a 'time specific' imagined space within ethnographic relationships. In the past year I have been experimenting with Borriaud's (2009) concept of the altermodern (the named period after postmodernity's death ) as a playful concept from where to re-narrate ethnographic encounters, and very particularly, the interview. Altermodern prepositions emphasise on 'journeying' and on the reconfiguration of globalised, in crisis, 'chaotic' cultural landscapes, with a core preoccupation with 'docu-dramas' and interviews (Bourriaud 2009).

Using filmed interviews in order to locate children's participation on gift exchange, the interview allows for a re-telling of personal stories and for children to 'giving movement' to the interview whilst not necessarily as it happens, engaging with it as such. The interview with children, filmed or otherwise, highlight the capacity of the interview, as an ethnographic form, to challenge how we narrate our participation of social spaces.

In this context, I view the interview as a place of different positionality of subjects admist interactions of specific albeit different times 'heterochronia' (ibid) and new communicative practices. I look at the interview as trespassing relationships between the people engaged on it, and inducing a sense of mobility, allowing for different ways of relating to and translating voice and individuals trajectories during an interview and to allowing for an ethnographic stance to be developed along with it.