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.