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- Convenors:
-
Maka Suarez
(University of Oslo)
Ebba Stenhaug (University Of Oslo)
Nikita Karbasov (University of Oslo)
Louisa Crysmann (University of Oslo)
Andrea Grimnes (University of Oslo)
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- Chair:
-
Maka Suarez
(University of Oslo)
- Discussant:
-
Judith Albrecht
(Humboldt University)
- Format:
- Combined Format Open Panel
- Location:
- NU-4B11
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 17 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Amsterdam
Short Abstract:
This is a combined format open panel about ethnography and pedagogical experimentation. This panel invites research-in-the-making that can be collaboratively imagined during this session by using multimodal formats to think through it.
Long Abstract:
This is a combined format open panel about ethnography and pedagogical experimentation. Inspired by a MA methods course where the final “exam” was a creative project instead of a written essay, and together with students who participated in the class, this panel invites research-in-the-making that can be collaboratively imagined during this session by using multimodal formats to think through it. Midway between a making-and-doing session and a more traditional panel format, we invite researchers to imagine their ongoing research, pedagogical experimentations, or future projects through creative methodological formats that can include sound bits, audio clips, photo essays, artistic creations, game sketches, scripts, or any other written or none written format that aids to communicate their research (findings or design).
Following critical pedagogies thinkers (York & Conley 2019; Gluzman 2017; Dumit 2014; Freire 2000), we invite participants to think collectively (during the session) by leaving theoretical abstractions suspended in favor of thinking through multimodal methodologies to open up unexplored or unsuspected new theoretical and political horizonings. We ask: what happens when we push ethnography into intergenerational and transnational conversations and collaborations that allow us to reconfigure current anthropological (via STS) imaginations.
We invite proposals from scholars at all stages of their career as well as from non-traditional academic paths, scholars outside academia or those focusing more closely on pedagogical experimentation to contribute to this panel with either an initial written abstract or a different medium (accompanied by a written summary if not self explanatory). If you are in doubt about whether your project/proposal fits the panel, please reach out to the organizers.
Dumit, Joseph. Writing the Implosion: Teaching the World One Thing at a Time
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
Gluzman, Yelena. Research as theatre (RaT)
York, E & Conley. Critical Imagination at the Intersection of STS Pedagogy & Research.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 17 July, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
Diverging from the assumption of the juxtaposition of theory and ethnographic work, the paper aims to discuss the collocation and provide parallels between applying traditional ecological knowledge embedded in boatbuilding practices and doing ethnography.
Paper long abstract:
In the early stages of my primary research on boatbuilding in the Russian North, I was groping for and exploring the tension between so-called ‘drawing’ and ‘flair’. This dichotomy revolves around the tension between using standardised measurements (such as length, width, and angles) versus relying on contextual, intuitive skills ('eye-ball') when constructing the boat. In my paper, I investigate how this tension applies to the fundamental aspects of anthropological work: theory and ethnography.
Theory is a tool that seeks to establish universal principles. At the same time, doing ethnography is an intuitive skill and knowledge passed down through generations of professors, academic supervisors and personal experiences, always rooted in practical and contextual application.
Drawing on a series of interviews and following discursive strategies of professors and scholars in Sociocultural anthropology and my teaching experience, I explore this tension, answering the question of relations between ‘theory’ and ‘ethnographic work’. I argue that traditional ecological knowledge embedded in boatbuilding practices can contribute to addressing issues related to sustainable environments and global warming. What problems can solve the contextual skill of doing ethnography?
Paper short abstract:
How can we think and write about our field-site when its imagined status is hazy or else, risks aligning with violent state practices? How to descend onto it ethically? And what is this ‘it’ anyway? Can spectrality afford some methodological attunements when its uncertain absence haunts us?
Paper long abstract:
“Welcome to Kurdistan!” – “Shish. You’re not in Kurdistan, you’re in Turkey!”
Although it remains an imagined project, defining your field-site is not often as straightforward as it sounds. In the region of Kurdish borderlands, it became a complex issue, historically and affectively charged. Was I in Iraq, KRI, or Bashur? Turkey or Bakur?
Aha! Got it: multi-sited! Nope; not even that seemed appropriate as it risked reproducing state imaginaries. After all, I was working within the ‘Kurdish region.' Already during fieldwork, the question of ‘where am I’ began hunting me. Yet, it quickly became clearer it was not only after me, it was possible it infested every mountain, village, and house I set foot in.
Navigating the methodology of ‘field-siting,’ the paper attempts a preliminary discussion on the notion of spectrality as a frame at the interfaces and interlaces of various imagined territorialities. Problematizing the now omnipresent multi-sited approach, I propose spectrality as a heuristic and possible methodological attunement to situating oneself. Drawing from the masters of hauntology (Derrida, 1993; Good et al., 2022) and the study of the negative (Taussig, 1999; Stoler, 2013; Navaro-Yashin, 2020), how can we approach the imagined life of the ‘field-site’ as a spectral presence, in its affective, ambiguous, and unstable nature? With the help of ‘footage-debris’ and stories collected in the field, this contribution will begin a reflection on the role of spectrality in the scientific prescription of defining ‘your’ field-site.’
Paper short abstract:
My project is an autoethnographic video essay that explores my experience of revisiting my childhood room nine years after moving out. It reflects on the remnants left behind and the spectral qualities associated with their lingering presence.
Paper long abstract:
Through a visual exploration of my childhood home accompanied by reflective narration, my work delves into the enduring presence of my past within my present, approached from an autoethnographical perspective. Situated in a quiet suburb near the Athens airport, this house serves as a repository of my memories. However, my former room now accommodates one of our family cats, often found sleeping with my mother. My piano functions as a dining spot for the cat, with its stool repurposed as a table for a desk lamp I once used for studying. Adjacent to the piano stands my old desk, now adorned with a decorative doily beneath a television screen—a stark contrast against the purple-painted wall whose color I enthusiastically chose at age seven. Posters from my adolescent years still adorn the walls, juxtaposing different stages of my life. Throughout the house, family portraits stand alongside Christian icons, creating a tableau that reflects the overwhelming Christian character of Greece.
Moreover, in the living room, as night descends, numerous cats completely take over the space. The aim of this exploration is to unravel the lingering echoes of my childhood within these objects, contemplating their transformation and the dynamic nature of their presence in this once-familiar space. The interplay between the enduring traces of my youth underscores how spaces evolve over time while retaining elements that connect them to our personal histories which are deeply interwined with the cultural environments we inhabit.
Paper short abstract:
This proposal aims to bring critical pedagogy to medical education. We seek to implement an experimental ethnographic method recording experiences in a multimodal database in Cuenca-Ecuador's medical school. How would these reflections contribute to the transformation of medical education?
Paper long abstract:
The way biomedicine values objectivity as a core competency is challenged by social scientists but also by some biomedical doctors themselves. What happens when physicians, trained in a biomedical practice that values objectivity as a core competency, are offered additional tools for personal and social reflection?
Nowhere is the acknowledgement of this more pressing than in Ecuador, where adopting biotechnologies as the only best standard for healthcare is eminent and on track. As a response to this trend, I am collaborating with a group of medical school professors at the University of Cuenca in Ecuador on this research proposal that aims to bring ethnographic methodologies into the Internal Medicine Residency curricula.
My goal in this project is to work with medical students and together pay attention to the interactions, reactions and emotions that arise during their clinical training and ethnographically record them in a shared platform. Written fieldnotes should not be the only data input; other modalities like voice memos, videos, sketches, and or mobile-phone- photographs as fieldnotes would allow the integration of perceptions through other senses into the work. Students will store their modes of data as they see fit in a multimodal digital platform, which will serve as the base for collective analysis; because medical training is hardly an individual endeavor, on the contrary it is heavily collaborative.
The ethnographic and collaborative aspect of this project could contribute in building better ways to teach and learn health sciences for the benefit of patients and healthcare workers alike.