Short Abstract

The roundtable introduces the preliminary results of the collective writing process of the Ethnographies of Joy: A Definitionless Dictionary in the Shadow of Impending Global Fascism. It invites the audience to propose their entries prioritizing relatedness between concepts, fields and disciplines.

Long Abstract

In response to the shared sense of powerlessness in academia and beyond, this roundtable is a celebration of the power of collectivity in scholarly knowledge production. In an attempt to harness the strength of ethnographic insight and reclaim anthropology from boring miserable people obsessing over endless redefinitions that reach unapologetically into ‘the canon’, this roundtable brings together five authors who have been engaged in the collective creation of entries for the ‘Definitionless Dictionary in the Shadow of Impending Global Fascism’. Taking joy, the augmentation of the capacity to affect and to be affected, as a starting point, the participants will share the outcomes and experiences of collective experiments in anthropological knowledge production, modes of creation which prioritized connections and relatedness instead of boundaries between concepts, field sites and disciplines.

The discussion will be shaped around:

-) The experience of using joy as a lens to rethink key notions in anthropology: the hiccups, challenges, and insights.

-) The co-realization of the particular keyword each participant was part of—how the process developed and how entanglements between different fieldsites arose or didn't.

-) The introduction of the first co-produced entries.

The roundtable is also an invitation to the audience to propose their own entries for the open-ended and open-access Definitionless Dictionary.