Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Christian Ritter
(Karlstad University)
Ieva Puzo (Riga Stradins University)
Send message to Convenors
- Format:
- Panel
Short Abstract:
Facilitating critical reflections on contemporary mobilities and the ethnographic practice of writing, this panel brings together ethnographers and scholars from related disciplines who assess mobile communities and border regimes.
Long Abstract:
This panel assesses the epistemological politics of ethnographic (un)writing about mobilities. Writing is an essential part of everyday life as well as an integral element of the ethnographic research practice (Wulff, 2021). Ways of creating, storing and disseminating information are structured by practices of writing. On the one hand, sign boards, handwritten notes, leaflets, text messages and social media posts shape the spatial organisation of places and the social construction of local identities in ethnographic field sites (Barton & Papen, 2010). On the other hand, ethnographers write field notes, reports and papers about mobile communities, corporal movement and the circulation of objects, data and capital across the globe. Written documents shape how mobile subjects experience borders, moments of stasis and movement (Riles 2006). In this panel, we invite scholars to explore the dynamic tensions between written traces of movement and ethnographic writing. How can written accounts of mobility complement field notes? How can mobile regimes be unwritten? In what ways are colonialism and contemporary mobilities intertwined?
The panel encourages ethnographic researchers to explore the potential of ethnographic storytelling for unwriting contemporary migration and border regimes. Ethnographic storytelling can challenge asymmetrical power relations in academia and establish transnational ethnographic collaborations, while transgressing conventional rules for single-person authorship. Participants will be given an opportunity to discuss experimental forms of gathering and presenting ethnographic data. The panel welcomes critical reflections on ethnographic (un)writing for anthropological mobility research into refugees, climate mobilities, health regimes and mobile labour.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper Short Abstract:
Based on semi-structured interviews with researchers in various national contexts, I examine the relationship between mobility, anxiety and scholarly, including ethnographic, writing.
Paper Abstract:
In this paper, I examine the relationship between mobility, anxiety and scholarly writing, including the knowledge produced by anthropologists. I explore how the contemporary mobility imperative that accompanies the neoliberalization of academic work engenders a profound sense of uncertainty and anxiety among research workers and shapes what and how is being written—and remains unwritten. Taking semi-structured interviews and unstructured conversations with international researchers in various national contexts as a departure point and interweaving my own experiences as a researcher on a fixed-term contract, I suggest that it is impossible to uncouple researchers’ writing—as well as the lack of it—from the institutional contexts, terms of employment, bureaucratic frameworks, and mobility regimes within which they work. While writing—in the form of high-impact research publications and grant proposals—is expected at an unprecedented pace and intensity in contemporary regimes of knowledge production, the same framewok engenders anxiety-ridden forms of the unwritten.
Paper Short Abstract:
Four Tunisian actors navigated visa procedures to the Netherlands, which became the plot of a performance for the Dutch audience. This paper uses the rehearsal phase as a field of inquiry to explore how theatrical creation, while navigating a visa procedure, opens new possibilities for methodology and analysis of the ‘paper border'.
Paper Abstract:
This paper examines theater as a method for studying the visa procedures of Tunisians to the Schengen area. Four Tunisian actors applied for visas to the Netherlands and created a theater production that depicted the challenges and dynamics of the visa procedure itself. This performative piece not only reflects the actors’ personal encounters with the bureaucratic apparatus but also serves as a collective ethnographic engagement with the material and embodied dimensions of the ‘paper border’.
The urgency to attend to the body emerges as a critical response to the documentation regime that defines contemporary borders. Drawing on performance ethnography, this research positions the body as an active site of knowing, challenging the hegemony of textual forms of data and knowledge. Rather than relying on language alone, the actors bring their bodily experiences of and around the visa procedure into the rehearsal space. The rehearsal space becomes a space for experimentation, where movement—not text—serves as the epistemological starting point. For instance, the actors engaged in tactile interactions with paper—holding it between toes, behind ears, on their stomachs—exploring its materiality and movement through space. These embodied engagements with paper highlight the intricate ways in which bodies, documents, and borders coalesce and intersect, offering new insights into the lived experience of bureaucratic systems.
In this paper, I use the rehearsal phase as a field of inquiry to examine how moments of theatrical creation, while simultaneously navigating a visa procedure, open new possibilities for both methodology and analysis in studying the ‘paper border.’
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper assesses how environmental organisations shape expertise on biodiverse landscapes in Singapore. Locating the design of multispecies landscapes within regimes of truth-making and practical ethics (e.g. Ong, 2005; Tsing, 2015), the ethnographic study reveals tactics for environmental repair and bottom-up climate activism.
Paper Abstract:
This paper assesses how environmental organisations shape expertise on biodiverse landscapes in Singapore. In 2020, Singapore’s National Parks Board launched the OneMillionTrees campaign, which sought to intensify urban greening efforts in the city. Exploring the entanglements between future orientations, climate advocacy and environmental care, the in-depth investigation explores how various lanscape experts, including park rangers, community gardeners, tour guides, plant farmers and conservationists, envision sustainable urban development. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Singapore’s parks and gradens, the main aim of the research is to gain a better understanding of the shaping of expertise in transitioning into post-fossil societies. Despite their commitment to educating the general public and the younger generation about practical ways of conserving biodiversity, Singapore’s landscape experts have to cope with increased uncertainty about the future of urban forests. Locating the design of multispecies landscapes within regimes of truth-making and practical ethics (e.g. Ong, 2005; Tsing, 2015), the ethnographic study reveals tactics for environmental repair and bottom-up climate activism.
Paper Short Abstract:
his study examines the reorganization of social relationships among climate-displaced communities in the Sundarban delta, using Habermas's lifeworld, Victor turner's communitas . Based on interviews with 50 respondents and focus groups, it highlights self-reliance and sustainability as keys to resilience and social cohesion.
Paper Abstract:
Rehabilitating communities has been a major challenge in the context of India where classic cases of failed resettlement such as the Narmada valley bring painful memories of the internally displaced population. This study examines how social relationships are rearranged in communities affected by natural disasters using Habermas’s lifeworld and victor turner's communitas, Disaster led displacement has long-term impact on vulnerable littoral communities (Mustak, 2022) and it has a profound implication for pre-existing social networks, forcing people to adjust to new social situations while attempting to start over. This study will focus on how cyclone displaced communities in the Bay of Bengal delta rim can be supported using the “sustainability and self-reliance principles”, which will help build resilience and maintain long-term social cohesiveness. Reorganising social relationships after resettlement is about more than just restoring what has been lost, it is also about building a resilient community that aligns with larger social goals of self-reliance for sustainable development. The fieldwork was conducted using qualitative methodology- semi structured interviews, and the interview schedule was used to gather data from the field. This involved purposive and snowball sampling to select respondents who were displaced by climate induced disaster events. This study was based on 90 migrant’s households in the Sundarban delta. The analysis is based on detailed interviews carried out among 50 respondents and a series of focus group discussions with community members from different age groups and both genders.
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper explores the (im)mobility of general practitioners in Latvia’s rural areas, examining personal motivations, policy incentives, and systemic barriers. Through qualitative interviews, it highlights tensions between aspirations and rural realities, “unwriting” dominant policy narratives and exposing overlooked complexities in healthcare.
Paper Abstract:
Latvia’s healthcare sector faces profound challenges due to workforce shortages among general practitioners (GP), exacerbated by an ageing population, urban primacy, and depopulating rural areas. This presentation explores the (im)mobility of general practitioners in choosing where to practice, focusing on the social, professional, and infrastructural “borders” that influence their decisions. Through qualitative interviews with students, residents, and GPs, we trace the (un)written narratives that shape professional mobility: personal motivations and imaginations of one’s life, policy incentives, and systemic barriers.
In this paper, I argue that while policies attempt to address rural healthcare deficits through financial incentives that compensate the distance to the capital and the depopulation, the narratives shared by interlocutors reveal tensions between their professional and personal desires and the lived realities of rural practice. Therefore, this research asks: who moves to rural areas, and why? Who stays in urban centres, and what factors constrain mobility? By analysing these narratives, I explore the uneven distribution of healthcare resources as a reflection of structural (im)policies that go beyond the health care planning but echo complicated systemic patterns of centre-periphery dynamics.
In this case, writing about the (im)mobility of healthcare workers serves as a form of “unwriting” dominant state and policy narratives, shedding light on overlooked complexities in healthcare delivery. Ultimately, this work highlights the need for policies that address not only material and financial conditions but also the infrastructural, social and emotional landscapes of healthcare labour, particularly in rural regions facing population decline and marginalisation.
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper examines healthcare disparities and migration patterns among marginalized tribal communities in rural Jharkhand. Using Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and ethnographic storytelling, it explores how inadequate healthcare infrastructure drives forced migration, while advocating for community-driven solutions to address health inequalities and reduce mobility.
Paper Abstract:
This paper critically examines healthcare disparities and migration patterns among marginalized tribal communities in rural Jharkhand, India, through the lens of ethnographic storytelling and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). Despite global initiatives such as Health for All (HFA) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), regions like Giridih, Madhupur, and Pakur continue to grapple with structural health inequities. Limited healthcare infrastructure, socio-cultural barriers, and poor health literacy force rural populations into patterns of health migration, seeking care in distant locations.
Drawing on a mixed-methods approach—incorporating community mapping, focus group discussions, and in-depth interviews—this research foregrounds the voices of indigenous communities while tracing their mobile journeys for healthcare. By exploring both stasis and movement, the study highlights how local health systems fail to anchor communities, contributing to cyclical migration and perpetuating vulnerabilities.
In keeping with the panel’s focus on the epistemological politics of ethnographic writing, this paper reflects on PRA as a collaborative method of “unwriting” dominant narratives that marginalize rural experiences of mobility and healthcare. It demonstrates how participatory storytelling not only captures the embodied experiences of migration but also advocates for community-driven solutions. Such accounts challenge asymmetrical power relations by prioritizing indigenous knowledge systems and lived realities.
Ultimately, this paper engages with the intersection of migration, mobility regimes, and healthcare inequalities to reimagine policy solutions that reduce forced migration and ensure equitable access to healthcare for marginalized populations.