This book provides an inventory of modes of inquiry for ethnographic research and presents fieldwork as an act of relational invention. It advances contemporary debates in ethnography by arguing that the empirical practice of anthropology is and has always been an inventive activity. Bringing together contributions from scholars across the world, the volume offers an expansive vision of the resourcefulness that anthropologists unfold in their empirical investigations by compiling inventive social and material techniques, or field devices, for anthropological inquiry. The chapters seek to inspire both novel and experienced practitioners of ethnography to venture into the many possibilities of fieldwork, to demonstrate the essential creative and inventive practices neglected in traditional accounts of ethnography, and to invite anthropologists to confidently engage in inventive fieldwork practices.
Author(s): Tomás Sánchez Criado; Adolfo Estalella
Series: Theorizing ethnography
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 248
Tags: ethnography, invention, fieldwork, anthropology
Introduction: The ethnographic invention
Adolfo Estalella and Tomás Sánchez Criado
Interlude I: The principle of invention (Outside in)
Martin Savransky
1. How to counter-map collectively
Counter-Cartographies Collective (3Cs)
2. How to produce responsive ethnography of data
Jorge Núñez and Maka Suárez
3. How to use disconcertment as ethnographic field-device
Helen Verran
4. How to draw fieldnotes
Letizia Bonanno
5. How to do a digital epidemiography
Shama Patel and John Postill
6. How to make ethnographic research with exhibitions
Francisco Martínez
7. How to write fieldpoetry
Leah Zani
8. How to flow with materials
Rachel Harkness
9. How to game ethnography
Ignacio Farías and Tomás Sánchez Criado
10. How to get caught in the ethnographic material
Greg Pierotti and Cristiana Giordano
11. How to devise collaborative hermeneutics
Kim Fortun and Mike Fortun
12. How to set ethnography in motion
Monika Streule
13. How to use Pathosformeln in anthropological inquiry
Anthony Stavrianakis
14. How to perform field encounters
Andrew Irving
15. How to invent childhood publics with photo-stories
Sevasti-Melissa Nolas, Christos Varvantakis and Vinnarasan Aruldoss
16. How to remediate ethnography
Adolfo Estalella
17. How to disrupt our field habits with sensory probes
Anna Harris
18. How to stitch ethnography
Tania Pérez-Bustos
Interlude II: An elimination dance (a history of disciplining the field/s)
Denielle Elliott
Interlude III: The politics of invention
Isaac Marrero-Guillamón and E. Gabriel Dattatreyan
Conclusion: Taking inventory
Tomás Sánchez Criado and Adolfo Estalella
