Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on methodological insights from research on Chinese media practices in Japan. Leaving the ethno-graphic for the photo-graphic, video-graphic, and praxio-graphic, I argue that 'ethnos' need not be the sole guiding principle of fieldwork-based anthropological inquiry.

Paper long abstract:

The suffix '-graphy' in the English language denotes forms of knowledge production that make a mark or 'trace' the world. More than just writing or representation, practices such as ethnography, have become a dominant mode through which we inscribe the worlds of others. Within this paper, I take inspiration from recent efforts to decouple anthropology from ethnography (Ingold 2014; Rees 2018), to show how other ways of tracing fieldwork are made possible when we abandon 'ethnos'. These insights draw on 4 years of fieldwork among young mobile Chinese people in Japan, separated into two separate research projects. Having conducted 2 years of research focused on the question of 'Chineseness' in Japan I found that much was overlooked when focusing on this question from the perspective of ethno-graphy. Returning later to explore questions of migrant media use, I quickly found digital, audiovisual and practice-focused approaches revealed new ways of seeing the field. Connections among those I researched did not adhere strictly to an ethos of ethnos, but rather followed the contours of multiple sensory, semiotic and ludic topologies in Tokyo. Leaving the ethno-graphic for the photo-graphic, video-graphic, and praxio-graphic then, I argue that 'ethnos' need not be the sole guiding principle of fieldwork-based anthropological inquiry.