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Paper short abstract:

Ethnographic fieldwork assumes the ability to observe and participate in everyday activities in one or more communities. What happens when circumstances prevent or complicate this? This paper considers the possibility for new understandings to emerge when “normal” fieldwork behavior is disrupted.

Paper long abstract:

Ethnographic fieldwork presupposes the ability to observe and participate in everyday activities within a community or communities. What happens when circumstances either prevent or complicate that ability? This paper considers the possibility for new ways of connecting “field” and “home” to emerge when “normal” fieldwork behavior is disrupted. As a food ethnographer from the USA who works primarily in Mexico, restrictions imposed during the global pandemic caused me to change research plans. The pandemic gravely affected people with whom I have longstanding ties and to whom I feel committed both professionally and personally. Most support their families through food production: small scale farming, prepared food sales, or work in restaurants. Many became ill or had to care for sick family members. Almost all faced economic hardships as pandemic related restrictions closed restaurants, complicated the movement of products from producer to consumer, and shut down tourism. Meanwhile, the pandemic exposed many problems and inequities in the food production and distribution systems in my home of Austin, Texas, problems exacerbated by the failure of the state’s power grid in the winter of 2021. Conversations with Mexican colleagues and friends, and experiences in Austin prompted me to ask: what are our roles and responsibilities as scholars when the communities with whom we work and those in which we live confront multiple crises? This paper offers an initial exploration into the connections of affective and material realities.