Paper short abstract

Our performance, involving a ball and a cloth, operates as a metaphor for the crossroads inherent in ethnographic practice. It evokes those moments of impasse in the field—when orientation collapses, when sense-making is deferred.

Paper long abstract

Negotiation, pausing, attuning acting, and reacting constitute qualities through which anthropologists navigate the uncertainties and contingencies of fieldwork. While the point of departure may seem clear, the path that follows is seldom straightforward, unfolding instead in unexpected directions that require constant attention, adjustment, and presence. Each day, each encounter, reveals another fragment of understanding—never fully assembled, never immediately locatable within the whole. Fieldwork unfolds as a process of continuous discovery, in which meaning emerges not from certainty but from sustained attentiveness.

This work engages the temporalities of waiting and settling: moments of suspension in which observation precedes intervention. As fragments accumulate, the researcher learns to discern which elements begin to resonate with one another, gradually shaping a provisional coherence. Yet this coherence remains fragile, always open to disruption and reinterpretation.

Our performance, involving a ball and a cloth, operates as a metaphor for the crossroads inherent in ethnographic practice. It evokes those moments of impasse in the field—when orientation collapses, when sense-making is deferred. Rather than treating such moments as failure, the performance invites us to return to the body—through presence, felt sensation, and focused attention—recognising embodied awareness and somatic regulation as methodological guides. In this space of apparent stuckness, new forms of knowing become possible, and alternative modes of engagement begin to unfold.