Short Abstract

This session offers a space to experiment with conference ethnography as a tool in STS, taking the EASST26 meeting as an ethnographic object. In between 2 sessions, participants will be collectively exploring, doing, and reflecting on conference ethnography as an STS method.

Description

Conference ethnographies, though rarely explicitly theorized, are a central method of STS research. Many of us routinely participate in conferences for or during fieldwork – whether these are scientific meetings, industry fairs, or policy events. This Making and Doing session turns this practice inward by collaboratively 'doing' an ethnography of EASST26 itself. This session aims at creating an experimental space for exploring the method of conference ethnography and for reflecting on observations made during EASST. By reflexively applying conference ethnographic tools at our own academic conventions, participants of this session are invited to collectively explore questions like:

• What epistemic and pragmatic 'things'/events are conferences, and what makes (STS) conferences distinctive?

• How can we methodologically 'know' and study conferences?

• What kinds of questions can be addressed through conference ethnography?

• And what can we learn about our own field through reflexive conference (auto-)ethnography?

*No prior knowledge or experience with conference ethnography is required to take part in this Session*

FORMAT: The session unfolds in two parts: an initial meeting (ideally early on the first day) will introduce the approach and share a short fieldwork guide. Participants will then conduct small-scale ethnographic observations throughout EASST26. In a concluding session (final day), we will reconvene to share notes and reflections, analyze the findings together, and discuss what it means for a discipline to study itself ethnographically.

We imagine this exercise to provide a rich discussion over the present conjuncture of STS, as conference ethnographies make visible how epistemic communities enact themselves and negotiate their boundaries; and how the STS field relates to its broader political and historical contexts. Furthermore, we expect this Session will connect researchers from different thematic fields and thus enable the formation of networks and collaborations on the basis of shared methodological interests.