Maps often represent dominant social, technical and political systems. In this post, Cla Ruzol and Cian Dayrit describe their work ‘Terrains of Power’ and how the creation of counter-maps can be a valuable tool for disrupting and reimagining unequal so…
Category: ethnography
The Cycle of Decolonisation: A tool for applying anthropology to policy and practice and achieving social justice
Anthropology as a discipline is not always one that is closely associated with social policy and directly contributing to domestic policymaking. In this post, Suriyah Bi describes how through founding The Equality Act Review, she successfully united, r…
In the current climate, Rapid Ethnographic Assessments are the research method we need
This is the third post in a six-week series: Rapid or Rushed? exploring rapid response publishing in covid times. As part of the series, there will be a virtual roundtable on Friday 6th November, 1.30pm featuring Professor Joshua Gans (Economics in the Age of COVID-19, MIT Press and Richard Horton (The COVID-19 Catastrophe, Polity Press … Continued
A ‘New Normal’ for the Social Sciences: Improving Pandemic Preparedness and Response
COVID-19 has led to an upheaval in almost all aspects of life, including the role of the social sciences in public health and pandemic responses. Whereas in the past, the social sciences have often played the role of cultural brokers, this upheaval offers an opportunity to explore a ‘new normal’, characterised by social scientists taking … Continued
Book Review: Muddied Waters: The Fictionalisation of Ethnographic Film by Toni de Bromhead
In Muddied Waters: The Fictionalisation of Ethnographic Film, Toni de Bromhead examines twelve documentary films about southern Italy to argue for a definition of ethnographic filmmaking as the ‘responsible and reliable’ gathering of footage through the avoidance of over-aestheticisation and other experimental aspects. While the book is of considerable disciplinary relevance and offers detailed and thought-provoking interrogations … Continued
Four reasons to graphically illustrate your research
Academic writing is often criticised for being overly complicated and impenetrable to anyone outside of a small circle of experts. In this post Gemma Sou reflects on how communicating her research in the form of a graphic novel transformed her research practice. Not only making her research more representative and accessible to those involved, but also through reshaping her research […]
Don’t let publication be the end of the story – transforming research into an illustrated abstract
Publishing research that can be accessed as widely as possible is clearly crucial, but ensuring that research is accessible to similarly large groups of people is an altogether different challenge. The CC BY license, required by many funders when publishing open access, permits users to transform and build upon the licensed content, creating something new and original. Lucy Lambe explains […]
Book Review: Crumpled Paper Boat: Experiments in Ethnographic Writing edited by Anand Pandian and Stuart McLean
In Crumpled Paper Boat: Experiments in Ethnographic Writing, editors Anand Pandian and Stuart McLean offer a collection that seeks to open up the possibilities for ethnographic research by approaching writing as a “material adventure”. As the volume grapples with longstanding questions regarding the ethical challenges of capturing one’s subjects in language, Fawzia Haeri Mazanderani nonetheless finds this a moving reminder of the power of words to enable entry into […]
Policymaking must become more empathetic rather than continuing its current overreliance on economic measures
In many cases policymaking is conducted without engaging with the public. It is economic measures, rather than any official public consultation, that inform monetary policy, for example. But does this contribute to the perception of policymakers as “out of touch”? Emmanuel Lee argues that policymaking must become more empathetic, with aggregate economic measures often failing to accurately reflect the wellbeing […]
Book Review: Roads: An Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise by Penny Harvey and Hannah Knox
In Roads: An Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise, Penny Harvey and Hannah Knox not only show why roads matter, but also attend to the material processes that bring roads into being through two South American case studies. Luke Heslop praises this book for showing how attention to the complexities of infrastructure projects sheds new light on the parameters of ‘the […]