Short Abstract:

In this lab, we invite (aspiring) podcasters to reflect on podcasting as a world-making practice. How can podcasting be more than a way to accumulate academic capital? How can podcasting meaningfully contribute to knowledge, learning, organizing, art, and/or people’s lives?

Long Abstract:

In this lab, we explore (ethnographic) podcasting as a worldmaking method. Drawing on our experience creating ‘de Verbranders,’ a podcast series on Europe’s borders and resistance against them, we ask how podcasting can be more than a way to accumulate academic capital. In the first part of the workshop, we will jointly reflect on the world-making affordances of podcasting. We will share how we came to see our episodes both as small universes we co-create and invite our listeners into, and as world-making, in terms of establishing particular connections and relations with the people with whom we co-create. We will further explore the affordance of podcasting through participants' own podcasting and/or listening practices. In the second part, we pose the following questions: What do we need to do and undo in our podcasting practices to create meaningful worlds and connections alongside episodes? How can podcasting meaningfully contribute to knowledge, learning, organizing, art, and/or people’s lives? In our own practice, we make sure to meet our guests a few weeks before the recording, to get to know them, and together decide whether to go forward, and if so, which story to tell, and how. We envision this second part as such a pre-recording conversation. In that spirit, we will bring our recording devices, to open up the possibility of turning our reflections into a recording. We especially invite attendees who have produced their own podcast or are thinking of doing so. Pre-registration is appreciated.