Paper short abstract:

This paper presents the obstacles of conducting a remote ethnography during the summer of 2020 with smallholder farmers in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, to show how the food system is already being changed from within, despite the lack of recognition and proper planning from decision makers.

Paper long abstract:

What is in fact ethnography? In 2012 John L. Jackson was already aware of the intersections between ethnography and the new digital modalities of sociality and intimacy. However, 2020 has brought these issues to the forefront as we, as ethnographers, were confronted with the obstacles of conducting our fieldwork in person. For months we endured quarantine and had to grief what many consider to be the basis of our professional identity: participant observation. Eventually we pulled ourselves together and realised that remote ethnography was not new, that social media platforms had been documenting and providing outlets for political struggles (Barassi 2013; Bonilla & Rosa 2015), just like digital media have been central to “cherish beliefs, ritual practices and modes of being in the world” (Coleman 2010: 487).

Based on interviews conducted over the phone and on Skype with farmers in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, this paper presents ethnographic data collected during the summer of 2020 in order to show how several small-scale businesses managed to feed the confined city dwellers. Although the concern for these farmers dealings is practically absent from planning policies, they relentlessly operate in the territory, crossing administrative divisions and responding to social and economic demands.

We conclude that qualitative methods are decisive for capturing responses during the pandemic (Teti, Schatz & Liebenberg 2020) and to better understand the implications of reflexive ethnography in the construction of ethnographic emplacement and knowledge (Pink 2008), even if our research needs to be done remotely for the time being.

Paper short abstract:

Apart from the pandemic, 2020 was marked by harsh political crises. In Belarus, the post-election state terror put the risks from coronavirus to the background of immediate, intense violence. How does one find an adequate toolkit to ethnographically account of the multispeed destruction of bodies?

Paper long abstract:

Apart from the pandemic, 2020 was marked by numerous protests and conflicts, overlapping with each other and urging observers to produce particularly multilayered descriptions. In the extraordinary times, the developments are sometimes so dynamic that in a week they can make us question established consensuses on the subject. For an anthropologist, it raises a demand for methological quest, experimentation, and, often, eclecticism.

The overlap of crisis factors also raises risks, both for researchers and studied communities. Although the Covid-19 presented an unknown, unprecedented challenge for a study of society, in many cases the risk to be infected with the virus stands next to police violence. This is also true for Belarusian repressions that are probably the most massive in Europe over the last fourty years.

In my presentation I want to elaborate on the idea of multi-speed ethnography in the pandemics and protest context. In a setting where bodies are destroyed in different ways simulaneously, what kind of output is expected from ethnographer? For the paper, I am reflecting on my ethnographic practice of 2020 that I spent predominantly in Minsk, and specific of writing throughout the year: from Facebook entries and journalist publications to therapeutic sessions with informants, and, in particular cases, ethnographic silence.

Paper short abstract:

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought a layer of social reflexivity that was perhaps unprecedented at this scale. The paper evaluates a whole lot of questions about how we constitute our sociality, intimacy, and socio-cultural, and economic aspects through alternative ethnography.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores digital socialities allowing for greater anonymity than in the physical world, and less surveillance as well. Anthropological methodology especially ethnography, as a discipline, is no exception and will be affected by the pandemic Covid-19. The kinds of field methods like participant-observation have become impossible. But to meet the challenge of the current moment, anthropologists are going to have to think hard about ethnography that are no less ethical, intellectual and at the same time they are practical. It is an opportunity of a lifetime for anthropologists to observe what is unfolding – to observe the practice and ideologies developed to sustain (or resist) social distancing. Different new concepts regarding ethnography, research and policy tools and research ethics will emerge after COVID-19 to respond to pandemic realities. The paper keenly observes community people through what’s app group chats, telephone calls, Facebook group chats, Facebook posts to pinpoint how they are experimenting with their creativities, food culture, either individually or in group over zoom and other virtual tools; whether they are falling ill or participating in following rules and regulations as placed by the state government and local authority. To bear ethics in mind the paper shall concentrate not only on general communities but more specifically on communities of health professionals, medical practitioners. The ethnography of these people in UK will be through zoom and online settings examining different social media and online networks. Questions of ethics can be discussed in this regard.

Paper short abstract:

Pandemic challenges in the research of intangible cultural heritage in small scale repeated fieldwork emphasized issues of (dis)trust in the methods of indirect communication and (non)belonging to different types of communities during a process of knowledge distribution in activities of a curator.

Paper long abstract:

As part of the work on the preservation of the intangible cultural heritage in the mostly rural area of Jadar in Western Serbia, every year I conduct repeated small scale fieldwork on customs which are a part of the National Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage and collect data on customs that could become a part of the Register. I do my research as part of my curatorial work in the memorial house of one of the founder of ethnography in Serbia, Vuk Karadžić (1787-1864).

During 2020, the pandemic set obstacles and challenges for this type of researches, but also emphasized some aspects of customs and communities that had not been visible or noticed before. The challenges facing researchers were different: absence of some annual customs because of "lockdown"; the (semi)secret keeping of some customs despite all gatherings being forbiden; a rapid change of customs and communities of participants; the use of adjusted research methods not recognized by institutions and local communities as "serious" and "scientific" ... All these and other changes emphasized the issues of mutual (dis)trust and (non)belonging, which was additionally deepened by the spatial distance. The fieldwork became an observation without participation and was reduced to using finished stories from social networks of members of local communities and photos with content that is "in focus" for members of communities. However, all things mentioned only emphasized the role of the anthropologists which is necessary in studying the dynamics of social relations in various changes.