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Paper short abstract

This paper advances antiracializing ethnography by critiquing colonial epistemologies and fieldwork asymmetries. It proposes reflexive, relational methods informed by ethnopsychiatry and Lacanian theory to humanize inquiry and deepen understanding of racialization through affective, lived engagement

Paper long abstract

The paper I propose seeks to contribute to an ongoing process of transformation toward antiracializing ethnographic methods and practices. The epistemological entanglement between anthropology, colonialism, and the construction of race is extensively addressed in the literature (among others Harrison 1997; Baker Lee 1998; Clifford, Marcus 2017; Simpson 2018). Similarly, the push toward the decolonisation of ethnography has been driven by numerous scholars (including Bajerano et al. 2019; Dutta 2020; Kaur, Klinkert 2021; Tripura 2023). Nevertheless, once into the field, tacit orders, those asymmetrical social structures underpinning the inquiry relationship (Bourdieu 1992), tend to reassert themselves when observing, collecting data or conducting interviews. These dynamics risk reproducing a research method that de-humanise interlocutors, reducing them to mere repositories of information (Kaur, Klinkert 2021). This becomes even more evident for white researchers (Egharevba 2001; Gordon 2005; Chadderton 2012). Thus, I believe intertwining reflexivity, critical studies in ethno-psychiatry and Lacanian theories may serve as valuable guide for grounding an inquiry relationship, attentive to the unconscious structurations shaping the interaction between researcher and participants. This approach I practiced during my PhD, can produce an unconventional and deeper understanding of racialization processes, merging academic knowledge with everyday experience. Such understanding emerges through getting to know the participants from an interpersonal and cultural, as well as historical and political, perspective. The unfolding trajectory of the relationship becomes the unfolding trajectory of the research itself (Tillmann-Healy 2003), thereby conferring ethnographic value on the affective and relational dimension, as well as on practices of social support (Picozza 2021).