Paper short abstract:

Physical distance imposed by measure following COVID-19 pandemic, together isolation and impossibility to move from one's own home have redrawn boundaries of ethnographic research based on daily contact, experience and participation of anthropologists as active subject in the field.

Paper long abstract:

Current situation has reminded us that concepts of adaptability and elasticity are not new to ethnographic research, especially with regard to the modes of investigation. To agree and renegotiate design and research modalities are now essential aspects.

Physical distance imposed by the measure, together with isolation and impossibility to move from one's own home have redrawn boundaries of ethnographic research based on daily contact, experience and participation of anthropologists as active subject in the field. Proximity, physical contact and encounter are still indispensable aspects of anthropological research, in some cases indispensable.

Undoubtedly the new technologies, represented by PCs and mobile phones, mediate the distance but force us to review the usual parameters of ethnographic communication and invent new ones.

In this circumstance I report the case that saw me engaged, in the year 2020, in the production of ethnographic materials, interviews and photographic documents, as part of my PhD research on the themes of craftsmanship, considering that part of it consists of the direct collection of stories and testimonies of life.

Limitation of physical and social proximity and closure of economic and commercial activities, have affected the usually long timescales and the research methods too.

The choice to use an audio recorder for interviews, instead of a camera, and also to resize photographic apparatus, have considerably reduced time for my presence on site, perhaps conditioning dialogical and collaborative dimension that characterizes ethnographic research. The same phase of negotiation with the interlocutors took place thanks to the virtual communication tools.