Paper short abstract:

I reflect on questions of “care” in doing and teaching ethnography within the framework of “innovative pedagogy”. Drawing from my experiences as ethnographer and faculty, and from global south scholars who have critically examined ethnographic practices to propose ways to practice ethnographic care.

Paper long abstract:

This paper reflects on questions of “care” vis-à-vis doing and teaching ethnography. Ethnography has received a boost in recent years as many universities and social sciences departments have embraced the framework of “innovative pedagogy” and means of learning that are more interactive, experiential, and focused on skill-development. Within this framework, ethnography as a principal method of anthropological research and data collection, is prized both as an interactive and experiential way of knowing and learning concepts and communities, and a valuable skill set of qualitative research, data collection and writing that is useful for future employment, both in and outside academia. Consequently, short-term ethnographic projects are increasingly being integrated in course curricula and students are encouraged to undertake fieldwork as part of their underrate training. It is important to consider this rising popularity and commonplace practice of ethnography alongside questions of ethics, practice, and training that are further entangled with dynamics of power, relationality, reciprocity, and knowledge production.

I will reflect on some of these questions in this proposed paper. In doing so, I will draw from my experiences as both an ethnographer and a faculty who teaches undergraduate anthropology courses, and from global south scholars who have critically examined their ethnographic practices and offered alternate roadmaps for “how to do” mindful ethnography. I conclude with deliberating on what “ethnographic care” could look like.