Paper short abstract:

This paper presents the interests and limits of a reflexive autoethnography on the issue of an uncertain “semblance of intimacy” that both can pre-exist or be created within social dancing gathering, and may facilitate or restrict the possibility of doing research.

Paper long abstract:

My research focuses on DJ events in the town of Accra in Ghana, described as a hub where inhabitants from different countries may invent new forms of cohabitation (Van Wolputte et al. 2022). One specificity when working on dance venues is that you have to be informed of the event, to be invited to participate, and then be able to enter into its flow. There are several ways to do so, as the presentation of previous and actual fieldwork will show.

Sharing a “transpolitan” position with some participants, i.e. people moving from city to city (Djebbary 2019:67), I started this autoethnography when I experienced difficulties at certain types of social gathering in my fieldwork. These difficulties highlight the issue of “semblance of intimacy” that both can pre-exist or be created within social gatherings, and may facilitate or inhibit the possibility of doing research. I will show the interest of an autoethnography that relies on its connection to a broader pragmatic and reflexive approach.

In this paper I will discuss the way this perspective facilitates addressing the mechanisms of the senses of collectiveness, created or required to participate in a DJ event. It brings also attention on an aspect of participant observation to be attuned with the event and the peoples, which is different with being affected by people or being empathic.