Contribution short abstract:

Using my ethnographic engagement with counter data practices and mapping as a point of departure, I aim to contribute to this workshop by mapping and reflecting on situated encounters, methods and politics in ethnographic fields.

Contribution long abstract:

Drawing on my current project on data politics in Turkey, I aim to contribute to this workshop by mapping and reflecting on ethnographic engagement with counterdata practices. I seek to explore the complex entanglements between researchers, counterdata actors, infrastructures, contentious data politics, and authoritarian dynamics. Using my ethnographic engagement with counter data practices and mapping as a point of departure, I propose to discuss with other workshop participants the methodological, ethical, and political questions surrounding positionality, situatedness, and collaboration. Considering ethnographic research from a position of critical proximity (Birkbak, Petersen & Jensen, 2015; Kinder-Kurlanda 2024), my aim is to critically examine the challenges and potentials of situated methods, encounters and positionings in the field - particularly in a data scape often characterised and experienced as authoritarian-populist. What methodological lessons and dilemmas do counterdata practices and methods pose for ethnographic inquiry? What boundaries, risks, and limitations come into play when engaging with counterdata practices in authoritarian-populist contexts and beyond? How do counterdata practices and ethnographic research intersect or diverge? Finally, what are the dimensions of ethnographic distance, critical proximity, and engagement both in research on data politics and in politically charged and volatile environments?