Contribution short abstract:

Works of fiction, poetry, and visual essays allow ethnographers to contribute to the communication of the possibility of an otherwise. The online lit mag Otherwise gives ethnographers a platform to open up a world, life or perspective that challenges what is to an audience beyond academia.

Contribution long abstract:

The online indie lit mag Otherwise Magazine gives ethnographers a platform to open up a world, life or perspective that challenges "what is" to an audience in and outside of academia. The stories published by Otherwise feature narrations free from the constraints of jargon, theoretical frameworks and standardised formats. Storytelling opportunities of this kind remain limited in so many areas of life and work. By questioning established positionalities of storytelling, Otherwise creates a space for the researcher as much as the researched to tell their stories. Transformation is possible when everyday encounters are recounted in a way that other possibilities can be envisaged: other ways of living, of understanding, of imagining the past, present and future. Three editors from Otherwise Magazine will explore how the magazine fosters conversations on the power of storytelling as a means of turning the ordinary into a space for imagining and pursuing an otherwise. These editors include:

Eleni Kotsira, a poetry editor with Otherwise Magazine, who holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of St Andrews and since 2021 works in the area of public policy. Her work focuses on environmental disasters, psychological anthropology and reflective research & writing methods;

José Sherwood González, an artist investigator whose PhD research explores the contemporary Mesoamerican cultural heritage and the revivification of museum objects through the use of film, digital and comics; and

Emily Kennedy, a Canadian journalist and researcher, challenges traditional journalistic methods of writing and researching by creatively blending methods from ethnography in reporting.