35.067 - Rethinking Ethnography in the Posthuman Turn

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Ethnographic method has driven an expansive programme of education research into the complexities of culture, subjectivity and power. Yet ethnography has been an engine of colonialist land-grabs since its inception, mobilizing anthropocentric modes of worlding. Is ethnography robust and flexible enough to withstand the challenges from posthuman, new materialist, decolonizing and indigenous methodologies? The presentations in this symposium explore future prospects of educational ethnography, addressing the following key questions: Can ethnography accommodate methods that are not tied to the privilege and ingenuity of the human interpreter? How might we rethink ‘the field’ in terms of queer or quantum ontologies of space and time? What will be the role for the ‘human’ if ethnography becomes ‘general ecology’?

Sub Unit

• SIG-Qualitative Research

Chair

• Maggie Maclure, Manchester Metropolitan University

Papers

• Toward a Speculative Ethnography - Maggie Maclure, Manchester Metropolitan University; David Rousell, Manchester Metropolitan University

• The Politics of Ontological Engagement: Indigenous and Post-Qualitative Methodologies - TeKawehau Hoskins, University of Auckland; Alison Jones, University of Auckland

• Posthuman Ecologies: The Future of Ethnographic Environ/mentality - Elizabeth De Freitas, Manchester Metropolitan University

• Lifelong Ethnography as Decolonizing Practice With Artists Pedro Rafael González Chavajay and Paula Nicho Cúmez - Kryssi Staikidis, Northern Illinois University

• Rethinking Transnational, Multisited Ethnography With Matter: General Ecologies of Making in Place - Anna Catherine Hickey-Moody, RMIT University; Joanna Dennis, Manchester Metropolitan University

Discussant

• Wanda Pillow, University of Utah