This workshop, led by Dr. Arzhia Habibi and Dr. Aizuddin Mohamed Anuar is intended for researchers interested in ethnography, particularly considerations of undertaking this immersive mode of research contingent upon contemporary conditions of precarity, uncertainty as well as the intersecting commitments across the personal and professional realms. Drawing on recent debates in “patchwork ethnography” (Günel & Watanabe, 2024) we will consider the following questions:
• How can we fruitfully embrace the precarities and uncertainties of social life today in ethnographic research?
• How do our personal and professional entanglements shape the production of ethnographic knowledge in the “field”?
• What would ethnographic work look like if we took a more inclusive and care-based perspective for people with different life circumstances and abilities?
In the first half of the workshop, Dr. Arzhia Habibi will share her experiences of conducting remote digital ethnography in the Chinese higher education context; the surprises, accidents, challenges and complexities of working cross-culturally in the ‘digital field’. The second half will build on these reflections through a series of individual and group activities that grapple with the above questions in relation to participants’ interests and ongoing research in ethnography. Based on our conversations and reflections, there will be an opportunity for participants to contribute to a collective ‘Methods Zine’.
Resource:
Günel, G. & Watanabe, C. (2024). Patchwork Ethnography. American Ethnologist, 51(1), 131-139.