TIK9014 – STS Methodologies: Devicing Ethnography
Schedule, syllabus and examination date
Course content
Summary
The course provides a theoretical introduction and practical intervention into the inventive nature of ethnography. It can be contextualised in the growing dissatisfaction with the methods of social sciences and their incapability to address some of the problems of the contemporary. The course will animate the field creativity of students and invite them to experiment with inventive field devices in hands-on sessions and write about their experience to contribute the xcol inventory.
Detailed description of the course content
This course offers a theoretical introduction and practical intervention into the inventive nature of ethnography. The course takes as its starting point the idea that ethnographic fieldwork is founded upon relational invention: ethnographers always invent how to device the conditions to inquire with others. Departing from the conceptualization, this course seeks to (i) animate the field creativity of ethnographers planning or already undertaking their doctoral work, and (ii) offer theoretical arguments to justify their inventive practices. For this, the course includes theoretical seminars, debate sessions and hands-on ethnographic interventions to be carried out by participants. The course will invite students to experiment with inventive field devices and write about their experience (during the course or drawing on their own fieldwork) to contribute the xcol inventory (https://xcol.org/).
This course can be contextualised in a growing dissatisfaction with the methods of social sciences and their incapability to address some of the problems of the contemporary. As seasoned anthropologist Paul Rabinow stated two decades ago (before embarking in diverse collaborative and experimental ethnographies), our methods are fundamentally deficient. Under these circumstances we have seen in recent years how different scholars have ventured into exploring a wide variety of modes of ethnographic collaboration and experimentation. An aspiration that resonates to the proposal that Celia Lury and Nina Wakeford made ten years ago to foster “inventive methods.” The booming recent debate and explorations on multimodal anthropologies are, perhaps, a good index of this state of affairs: With those invoking the need to explore multimodality in anthropology and other social sciences through diverse forms of public engagement and experimentation, collaboration and diverse sensorialities (beyond sight) in our ethnographic inquiries.
The course offers a theoretical introduction that dialogues with the contributions of anthropologists like Roy Wagner, Marilyn Strathern and Paul Rabinow, the critique of research methods developed from the STS by authors like John Law and Evelyn Ruppert, and the invocation of the need to inject an inventive gesture in our empirical investigations proposed by Celia Lury, Nina Wakeford and Les Back, among others.
Besides, this course presents an ongoing work on the creative nature and inventive condition of ethnography currently undertaken at xcol, an ethnographic inventory: An open-source anthropological infrastructure dedicated, curated by the course organisers, taking inventory of the endless invention that is integral to any ethnographic inquiry. Xcol promotes a scholarly program that seeks to (i) document (or, in our parlance: take inventory) the diverse inventive activities of ethnographers, and (ii) animate the creativity of fellow ethnographers in their empirical engagements. This program grows out of our ethnographic experiences over the years and of many other ethnographers and anthropologists whose ethnographic relations are traversed by creative interventions.
Following suit of these scholarly engagements, the course includes both theoretical and debate sessions as well as practical exercises (all to be happening in a hybrid format, both in presence and with online parts). The first part of the course (face-to-face) will introduce a number of inventive devices that have been developed by different fellow anthropologists and ethnographers. This includes the use of fieldpoetry as a form of registry and engagement in the field, walking interviews as way to script encounters, gameboards as speculative devices and drawing as an ethnographic mode of inquiry. The inventory does not seek to be exhaustive; its goal is to present different modes of arranging the material and spatial dispositions of the ethnographic encounter. The second part of the course (online) will invite participants to engage in creative practices in field situations. During a three-week period, they will experiment with some field devices and will devise their own inventive engagements with the empirical. Participants will have three online meetings (1,5 hours long) during this time. As a result of these explorations, participants will be encouraged to contribute to explore how to describe or take inventory of their ethnographic engagements.
Learning outcome
In this course, participants will:
- Become familiar with recent critiques of social research methods elaborated in recent time by STS scholars.
- Develop an epistemic sensibility attentive to the spatial and material arrangements of ethnographic fieldwork (field devices).
- Learn from different inventive devices used by ethnographers in ethnographic projects.
- Explore creative and inventive modes of field relations.
- Learn to describe and take inventory of ethnographic invention.
Admission
Students must be enrolled in a PhD programme, either at the University of Oslo or at another university in Norway or another country. There is no course fee. The University of Oslo cannot provide housing or travel support.
Application documents:
- The application form (fill in the form and submit electronically) with the following attachments:
- A short outline of your PhD project.
- A letter of confirmation regarding candidacy within a PhD program.
Application deadline: 15 August 2022.
Prerequisites
Formal prerequisite knowledge
It will be necessary for participants to have a basic knowledge of ethnographic research.
Recommended previous knowledge
Previous experience doing fieldwork would be appreciated, although not indispensable.
Teaching
Teaching dates: October 3-5, 2022 + guided online work in the subsequent 3 weeks.
FIRST PART OF THE COURSE (face-to-face): A THEORETICAL INTRODUCTION
Week 1
Monday 3/10/2022
Place: Lucy Smith's building 10th floor, room 1004 Hannah Ryggen
1. [Theoretical seminar] A reflection on our modes of inquiry
This session introduces recent critiques to the limitations, hegemony, and rigidity of the ethnographic method and proposes to speculate with alternative modes of inquiry. The current diagnosis is clear: the conventional formulation of ethnography is unable to produce relevant questions for the complexity of the contemporary. Hence, ethnography has to be transformed if ethnographers want to keep the pace of a world in continuous transformation. Drawing on recent contributions from STS scholars, the session offers a reflection on the social life of methods and highlights the need to speculate with inventing novel modes of inquiry.
Reading
This course can be contextualised following a growing dissatisfaction with the methods of social sciences and their incapability to address some of the problems of the contemporary.
Other suggested readings
Law, J. 2004. “After Method: Mess in Social Science Research.” London: Routledge,.
Lury, C.; N. Wakeford. 2012. Introduction: a perpetual inventory. In “Inventive Methods. The happening of the social”, edited by C. Lury & N. Wakeford (pp. 1-24). Oxon: Routledge.
Dattatreyan, E.G., & I. Marrero-Guillamón. «Introduction: Multimodal Anthropology and the Politics of Invention». American Anthropologist 121, 1 (2019): 220-28.
2. [Theoretical seminar] Experimental collaborations: engaging in joint-problem making with our epistemic partners
Experimentation has been invoked in recent times as a potential figure to renovate the empirical activity of ethnography. Scholars have recently argued the need for ethnographic experimentation both in the practice of analysis and fieldwork. This debate builds on the experimental forms of writing taking place during the reflexive turn that started in the 1980s. In this session we propose the figure of experimental collaboration, an ethnographic mode of inquiry that turns out counterparts into epistemic partners and is articulated through activities of joint-problem making.
Reading
Criado, Tomás S. & Adolfo Estalella. 2018. Introduction. Experimental collaborations. In “Experimental collaborations. Ethnography through fieldwork devices”, edited by Adolfo Estalella & Tomás S. Criado, 1-30. New York, Oxford: Berghahn.
Other suggested readings
Ballestero, Andrea, & Brit Ross Winthereik. 2021. “Experimenting with Ethnography.” In Experimenting with Ethnography: A Companion to Analysis, edited by Andrea Ballestero and Brit Ross Winthereik, 1–14. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Fragments of Martínez, Francisco. 2021. Ethnographic Experiments with Artists, Designers and Boundary Objects: Exhibitions as a Research Method. London: UCL Press.
Marrero-Guillamón, Isaac. 2018. “Making Fieldwork Public: Repurposing Ethnography as a Hosting Platform in Hackney Wick, London.” In Experimental Collaborations: Ethnography through Fieldwork Devices, edited by Adolfo Estalella and Tomás S. Criado, 179–200. New York: Berghahn.
Gaspar, Andrea. 2018. “Idiotic Encounters: Experimenting with Collaborations between Ethnography and Design.” In Experimental Collaborations: Ethnography through Fieldwork Devices, edited by Adolfo Estalella and Tomás S. Criado, 94-113. New York: Berghahn.
Tuesday 4/10/2022
Place: Lucy Smith's building 10th floor, room 1004 Hannah Ryggen
3. [Theoretical seminar] ‘Devicing’ fieldwork (and fieldwork devices): an inventory.
This session introduces the concept of fieldwork devices by describing a series of ethnographic projects that use poetry and drawing for the field registries, infrastructures to establish relations in the field, or performances (like script walks or theatre activities) as modes of engagement. Devices are conceptualized as situated relational orders devising the ethnographic encounter. Drawing on this idea fieldwork is conceptualized as an activity engaged in the arrangement of the social, spatial and infrastructural dispositions needed to investigate with others or, formulate differently, ethnography always demands to ‘device’ the conditions for the encounter with our epistemic partners.
Readings
Law, J., & E. Ruppert. “The Social Life of Methods: Devices.” Journal of Cultural Economy 6, 3 (2013): 229-40.
Other suggested readings
Several contributions to the ongoing compilation by Tomás S. Criado & Adolfo Estalella (Eds.). (forthcoming). An Ethnographic Inventory: Field Devices for Anthropological Inquiry. London: Routledge.
4. [‘Therapeutic’ session] Cleenik for ethnographic invention.
In this session we will explore a meeting methodology to care for the uncertainties provoked by ethnographic experimentation. The CLEENIK is a meeting methodology, a format seeking to devise spaces to share and learn how to practice forms of ethnographic invention in fieldwork. Drawing on practices of care it aims at unfolding the conditions to tame the anxieties and uncertainties provoked by these particular ethnographic modalities. The CLEENIK format is especially addressed at ethnographers in the early stage of their careers.
Further reading
https://xcol.org/invention/cleenik-clinic-of-anthropological-ethnographic-experiments/
Wednesday 5/10/2022
Place: Lucy Smith's building 10th floor, room 1004 Hannah Ryggen
5. [Theoretical seminar] The ethnographic invention.
This session introduces a core argument for the course: The activity of ethnographers is founded on invention. Ethnography is founded upon the invention of relations. There is no script for social life and no method good enough to guide the construction of relations in the field, ethnographers have to creatively improvise how to relate to their counterparts. The creativity and invention we signal is not the romantic activity of a lone individual but and emergent and relational phenomena that happens in the social interaction of the ethnographic encounter.
Readings
Estalella, Adolfo & Tomás S. Criado. (forthcoming). “Introduction.” In An Ethnographic Inventory: Field Devices for Anthropological Inquiry, edited by Tomás S. Criado & Adolfo Estalella. London: Routledge.
Other suggested readings
Several contributions to the ongoing compilation by Tomás S. Criado & Adolfo Estalella (Eds.). (forthcoming). An Ethnographic Inventory: Field Devices for Anthropological Inquiry. London: Routledge.
6. [Preparatory workshop] Organization of the second part of the workshop (online).
SECOND PART OF THE COURSE: HANDS-ON ETHNOGRAPHIC ENGAGEMENTS
This second part invites students to experiment with creative engagements in ethnographic fieldwork. It involves a series of ethnographic interventions in which participants will be learning to appreciate and invent particular field devices.
Participants will choose a public space in their city to engage ethnographically in four exercises of approximately 1,5 hours each during a period of three weeks. For those already undertaking fieldwork, it will be possible for them to carry out these ethnographic engagements in their field site, if this is possible an appropriate.
Later, working in groups of up to four people, participants will exchange the field diary records of their engagements. In each of these exercises, students will practice a different ‘field device.’ The goal is to move beyond participant observation to explore creative modes of relation in ethnography.
Week 2
1st ethnographic exercise: Ethnographic drawing.
2nd ethnographic exercise: Shadowing a non-human (animal or moving thing).
Online discussion.
Records from the ethnographic engagements will be distributed in advance inside each group of students. We will gather online to share a critical discussion of these ethnographic experiences. Each student will comment on her experience and the experience of one of their fellow students.
Week 3
3rd ethnographic exercise: Devicing the field.
4th ethnographic exercise: Inventing modes of inquiry.
Online discussion.
Records from the ethnographic engagements will be distributed in advance inside each group of students. We will gather online to share a critical discussion of these ethnographic experiences. Each student will comment on her experience and the experience of one of their fellow students.
Week 4
Online discussion.
In the third week we will gather online to close the seminar, share our learnings and introduce the final assignment.
Examination
Students will have to attend the face-to-face theoretical sessions of the first part of the course. They will have to engage in at least two of the four ethnographic engagements of the second part of the course. They will have to write a piece discussing these engagements, this will serve as the item for the examination. This piece should offer an ethnographic description of their experience and a theoretical reflection of their mode of inquiry, in dialogue with the literature of the course and other relevant authors of the field. Students should pay specific attention in this writing to their creative and inventive gestures. They can engage in multimodal formats in this piece, this means that they are invited to include illustrations, photos, videos, etc. The piece is expected to have an extension of 2.500 words.
More detailed inspiring instructions on how to elaborate this piece may be found here: https://xcol.org/xposition/writing-inventions-a-how-to-guide-to-approach-the-description-of-field-devices/
Some of these pieces will later be published in the xcol inventory.
Grading scale
Grades are awarded on a pass/fail scale.
Language of examination
The examination text is given in English, and you submit your response in English.
The term paper will be written in English.
Grading scale
Grades are awarded on a pass/fail scale. Read more about the grading system.