Paper Short Abstract:

This paper argues for a nuanced reflection on a variety of relational dimensions with the aim of enabling informed choices about how we, as academic knowledge producers, act in and relate to the contested world(s) of which we're a part.

Paper Abstract:

Based on 15 years of engaged ethnographic research on and in migration, border, and social (state) regimes in Germany/EUrope and the US, this paper begins by proposing that: a) knowledge production is a social practice, and thus knowledge producers are never alone (though they can be lonely); and b) knowledge production always has effects in the social world(s) it is part of. Reflecting on how we, as ethnographers and cultural analysts (at least partly based in academia), choose to engage with the world in general and our ‘field’ more specifically, and how we wish to participate in processes of world-making, it is neither particularly helpful to maintain the idea of a strict separation between the spheres of academia and activism, nor to conflate them. Instead, we need to consider a multitude of relational dimensions: How, in which temporal phases, modes, and arenas, do we (want to) impact the world we’re part of? What are our epistemological and political positions? What are our structural, political, and emotional relationships to individuals and (sub-)collectives in the field? Which resources are available, and to whom? The aim of such a nuanced relational reflection is to enable us to make informed and responsible choices about how we, as academics, activists, and social beings, want to relate to the contested world(s) we’re part of.