Paper short abstract:

Crafting anthropology brings theory and method together through sensibility. This paper will explore how the intersection of biophysics, art and anthropology, as well as researcher and community, influences the development of ideas.

Paper long abstract:

I spent twelve months doing fieldwork in tissue culture facilities working at the intersection of biology, physics, art and anthropology. Immersive participant observation allowed me to focus on a set of practices, practices of movement which support an intimate human-cell relationship. It is the apparatus and craft skills at play in labs, indicator of the mobilisation of many disciplinary fields (Latour & Woolgar, 1986), which enable practitioners of cell culture to engage living materials with care and creativity. Described by Paxson (2013), craft is "located at the nexus of art and science". Anchored in bodies and not disciplines, craft brings in question sensory knowledge and intuition as there is constant movement between what is practically apprehended and the protocol.

Craft is a useful point of entry to discuss anthropology as a discipline full of moving bodies. The idea of craft as moving beyond disciplinary concerns (Paterson & Surette, 2015), brings me to the conceptualisation of anthropology itself as a crafting practice. A crafting multidisciplinary anthropology would bring theory and method together again by basing discussion in wonder and sensibility (Ingold, 2008, 2013). Engaging my research as an antidisciplinary (Ito, 2014) crafty experiment has led to the emergence of BioTown, a multidisciplinary non-profit which works towards the accessibility of biological knowledge and laboratory practices.

This paper will explore how dialogues between disciplines but also between researchers and local community allow and hinder the development of ideas. The multidisciplinary framework of crafting will allow a critical reflection on the practice of anthropology.