This lecture uses two senses of the concept and practice of ‘prototype ‘in its usual industry and design contexts to explore several experimental strategies in the pursuit and production of ethnographic research in its anthropological tradition.
It is argued that the latter tradition of research requires new forms that impinge not so much on its established modes of scholarly communication—the article, the monograph—but on how it establishes the conditions of fieldwork in contemporary multi-sited spaces of complex assemblages and big projects through which ethnography operates and defines its objects of study. These forms are conceived as ‘third spaces’, materialized as staged occasions, studios, labs, established alongside the traditional serendipitous path of fieldwork, and involving explicit intellectual partnerships with persons who might otherwise be viewed as facilitators or subjects of research. These third spaces produce prototypes as accessible alternative products of contemporary ethnographic experiments.
When: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Where: Room H-1120, Henry F. Hall building (1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W.) Sir George Williams Campus
George E. Marcus is Chancellor’s Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Irvine, where he is director of the Center for Ethnography. He is co-editor of Fieldwork Is Not What It Used To Be (2009), and co-author of Designs For an Anthropology of the Contemporary (2008).
CEREV was founded in 2008 to forge new ground in scholarly and public understandings in the aftermath of mass violence. We encourage reconsideration of - and experimental approaches to – ethnography and curatorial practice in light of the particular challenges of violence-related material. The centre is a laboratory for project-based, interdisciplinary public scholarship, and a hub for collaboration in research and creative dissemination of new knowledge about experiences of social suffering.
This event is sponsored by:
• Concordia University
• Faculty of Arts and Science
• Department of Anthropology
• CEREV (Centre for Ethnograhic Research and Exhibition in the aftermath of Violence)
Related links:
• George E. Marcus' profile
• Department of Anthropology, University of California
• Faculty of Arts and Science
• CEREV
