Short Abstract:

In this lab we encourage an exploration of the space just outside our reach as fieldworkers: a speculation on what we do not or cannot know from ethnographic evidence and experience alone. We invite participants to consider "what might be," through simple ethnographic fiction writing exercises.

Long Abstract:

As anthropologists in the field, we are most often concerned with what we know, or what we can find out. Yet some things lie just outside this sphere: just around the corner as it were, behind some sort of barrier; or perhaps they belong to another time, the past or the future. In this lab we invite participants to consider what may happen, or what could have taken place. Focusing on some object, entity or person, we invite speculation on what might be, contemplating the idea of afterlives. Ethnography will serve as a point of departure for experimentation with short ethnographic fiction and/or poetry using simple prompts. In preparation, participants are asked to think of a person, entity, object or image from the field that they might use as a starting point. They need not otherwise prepare anything in advance, but we ask that they sign up via this simple online form: https://forms.gle/v3Figio3PExA8ukS8.