Paper Short Abstract:

Drawing on a long-term individual and collective ethnographic engagement with plants, this poster concerns methodologies in/of more-than-human worlds and inquires into the processes of undoing, rewriting, and developing methodological approaches within an interdisciplinary research team.

Paper Abstract:

This poster concerns methodologies in/of more-than-human worlds, with a particular focus on plants, and presents the process of developing methodological approaches within an interdisciplinary research team consisting of anthropologists and biologists. There seems to be agreement that ethnographies of more-than-human worlds require breaking down disciplinary boundaries (Tsing, 2010), but the practicalities of transdisciplinary approaches remain ambiguous. In relation to ethnography, concepts such as the 'mode of wonder' (Ogden, Hall, & Tanita 2013) or the 'arts of noticing' (Tsing 2015) speak to our imaginations but tell us little about research methods and strategies. Drawing on a long-term individual and collective ethnographic engagement with plants in Istanbul (Turkey) and Gdańsk (Poland), this poster discusses research methods and strategies and the processes in which they were developed, as well as their limitations and potential outcomes. If undoing and rewriting concern ethnographic practice, this poster aims to bring to light the practicalities of research, with its muddiness, ambiguity and unpredictability.

The poster unfolds as follows. First, it presents the main research 'toolkit': our initial research methods and strategies, which were inextricably linked to personal and professional biographies. Secondly, it discusses the process by which the methodology was developed through more-than-human affective encounters. We argue that research is not only about dialogue, interaction, collaboration, friendship and fun, but also about conflict, friction, ambiguity and frustration. Thirdly, the poster explores the questions of more-than-human agency, representation and genre, and inquires into the practicalities of undoing and rewriting ethnographies with plants.