Paper short abstract:

Unpacking ‘movement’ as a conceptual, methodological, and analytical modality of knowledge production, we critically interrogate the assumptions of space, time, and theory that constitute ethnographic research.

Paper long abstract:

Unpacking ‘movement’ as a conceptual, methodological, and analytical modality of knowledge production, we critically interrogate the assumptions of space, time, and theory that constitute ethnographic research. Drawing from our ethnographic research done with moving bodies in urban India – gig workers and cab drivers – we explore being “on the move” as more than just a metaphor in structuring ethnographic attachments and dispositions:

First, we tackle a spatial mode by contending that while the field is often visualized as a distinct non-human, physical spatiotemporal entity in which the ethnographer ‘enters’, we conceptualize the field as spontaneous movements of the ethnographer whilst thinking, navigating, making decisions of where to go and where not during the fieldwork itself. Second, we probe temporality in ethnographic research. Going beyond the debates between long-term and short-term (patchwork) ethnography, we aim to move the notion of temporality as central to not just the ethnographer but also the interlocutor. We explore how the interlocutors’ perceptions regarding ‘time’ determine the granular as well as the overarching temporality of ethnographic research. Finally, we think through theory as a modality of research and ask: what in the field moves theoretical, conceptual and analytical paradigms?