Short Abstract:

This roundtable panel will discuss innovations and experiments in ethnographic writing, exploring new approaches in storytelling. We ask: What ground-breaking writing is changing the field of Anthropology? How does new ethnographic writing help us do/undo anthropology differently in 2024?

Long Abstract:

This roundtable panel will discuss innovations and experiments in ethnographic writing, exploring new approaches to storytelling. We want to move beyond previous discussions about fiction/ethnography and the literary influence to imagine new genres and storying techniques that might redefine Anthropology for a different kind of future, one committed to making the discipline more collaborative, reflexive, equitable, and engaging. We explore new and remodeled writing strategies in anthropology including fieldnotes, ethnographic memoirs, embodied writing, and multimodal storytelling. We ask: How do anthropologists tell stories? What effect does writing have on the power of the story? How can speculative and science fiction, autofiction, screen writing, performative writing, drama, new media writing, poetry, and satire contribute to ethnographic narratives? How might anthropologists experiment with genre, style, narrative, point-of-view, dialogue, and the use of metaphor and symbols in their writing? What responsibility do we have as anthropologists to write in ways that are accessible outside of the academy? How might we engage in more collaborative writing? What ground-breaking writing is changing the field of Anthropology? In what ways can ethnographic writing be both creative and critical? What counts as ‘experimental ethnographic writing’ in 2024?

Keywords: ethnographic writing, literary ethnography, storytelling