Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the nature and temporality of negotiations involved in the making of a collaborative ethnography in a neighbourhood in Great Lisbon, Portugal. We address challenges and hopes of our experience, and the diverse demands and expectations of both academic actors and residents.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims to discuss the nature and temporality of negotiations involved in the making of an ongoing collaborative ethnography in a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Lisbon, Portugal. By describing the processes of bringing researchers and local residents together, constructing a collective project and engaging in a negotiation about the diverse objectives and meanings of this initiative, we aim at sharing the difficulties, complexities and challenges of the collaborative purpose.

The goal of our project is to produce a social cartography of Jamaika, an informal settlement inhabited by migrants from African countries and Gypsy families on the outskirts of Lisbon. The cartography is meant to work as a source of knowledge of the area for both dwellers and researchers, being simultaneously an instrument of political claims, as well as a means to create a positive social visibility of the area.

From the beginning, our main interlocutors have been the members of an association formed by local denizens. Over the course of our endeavour, the original plan has been postponed according to the demands and expectations of our partners as well as to our needs of amplifying contact networks, and promoting larger participation. This negotiation process resulted in the joint implementation of an alphabetization course and in the renewal of the association's headquarters.

In our paper, we intend to speak about the challenges and hopes of our experience, involving the diverse - and sometimes contrasting - demands and expectations of both academic actors and research subjects.