Short Abstract

This roundtable critically considers the past, present and future of the Ethnography Lab. It invites discussants to reflect upon these broader issues in light of their experience undertaking multi-modal ethnographies, and leading Lab-based projects.

Description

Epistemologies of Western science have historically made a distinction between ‘the field’ and ‘the laboratory’. By this logic the very phrase ‘Ethnography Lab’ is an oxymoron. However, in recent years, an increasing number of Ethnography Labs have been launched at universities around the world, either as institutional, or as project-specific, research entities. The growing popularity of the Lab concept reflects the changing nature of ethnographic enquiry, something which has been influenced by a number of trends, including, for example: an increased emphasis upon co-designed ethnography; broadening experiments in multi-modal methods and/or forms of representation, and; a growing interest in the ethnography of virtual (and technologically hybrid) worlds. The rise of the Lab model may also reflect the emergence of new kinds of inter-disciplinarity, and teamwork, in ethnographic research, and new institutional arrangements within the academy. The purpose of this roundtable then, is to critically consider the past, present and future of the Ethnography Lab. Discussants will engage these broader issues through reflection upon specific ethnographic projects which has been carried out in and through Labs. Particular attention will be paid to co-designed and multi-modal projects.