Short Abstract

This Lab explores zine-making as an anthropological method and speculative praxis to translate theory, share lived experience, and collectively imagine the otherwise. Participants will collaboratively create a zine on polarization through hands-on, collective practice.

Long Abstract

This double Lab proposes zine-making as an experimental anthropological method that bridges theory, lived experience, and collective knowledge production while fostering speculative praxis. Zines—low-tech, tactile, and accessible—have long served as tools for counter-narratives, political expression, and situated knowledge. In anthropology, they can function as a medium of translation, documentation, and participatory inquiry, enabling critical engagement with polarized realities while opening space to imagine alternatives.

Structured as a hands-on workshop across two consecutive sessions, the Lab invites participants to collectively select a topic related to the conference’s theme of polarization. Participants will work in groups exploring different anthropological uses of zines: translating academic arguments into accessible visual-textual formats; collecting and transmitting first-hand témoignages, observations, or experiences; and experimenting with zines as spaces for collective reflection and speculative thinking. The groups will then share their approaches and reflect on the process.

Drawing on concepts such as queer utopia, the Lab approaches imagination as a political act rooted in the present yet oriented toward alternative futures. Zine-making’s materiality enables participants to transform abstract ideas and experiences into tangible, shared forms. The Lab also engages the margin as a space of radical openness and practices of epistemic disobedience, challenging dominant academic knowledge production.

Participants will collaboratively produce a draft zine and reflect on its epistemological and political implications. Emphasizing process over outcome, the Lab fosters experimentation, care, and collective learning.

No prior experience is required.