Full Description
How does peripherality challenge methodology and theory-making? This book examines how the peripheral can be incorporated into ethnographic research, and reflects on what it means to be on the periphery - ontologically and epistemologically. Starting from the premise that clarity and fixity as ideals of modernity prevent us from approaching that which cannot be easily captured and framed into scientific boundaries, the book argues for remaining on the boundary between the known and the unknown in order to surpass this ethnographic limit. Peripheral Methodologies shows that peripherality is not only to be seen as a marginal condition, but rather as a form of theory-making and practice that incorporates reflexivity and experimentation. Instead of domesticating the peripheral, the authors engage in (and insist on) practicing expertise in reverse, unlearning their tools in order to integrate the empirical and analytical otherwise.
Contents
Foreword, Paul Stoller (West Chester University, USA)IntroductionPart One: Suspension of Clarity1. Bad Analysis: Peripherality, Leaps of Faith, and Experiments in Anthropological Writing, Martin Demant Frederiksen (University of Oslo, Norway)2. Chemæra, Jason Pine (SUNY Purchase, USA)3. Being In The Periphery, Thinking From The Periphery, Kirsten Marie Raahauge (The Royal Danish Academy of Architecture, Design and Conservation, Denmark) Part Two: Staying and Attention 4. Words Flying Away: Sufism and Fieldwork in Russia, Lili di Puppo (HSE Moscow, Russia)5. Imagining Unknowing Knitting: On the Desired Absence of Knowledge, Lydia Arantes (UCL, UK)6. Peripheral Knowledge: Metis in Ceramic Production, Ewa Klekot (Warsaw, Poland)7. Wounded Margins: Vulnerability, the Conditions of Life, and the Ontology of the Body, Jan Hinrichsen (Tuebingen University, Germany)Part Three: Unlearning 8. Objects of Attention. Experiments with Knowledge in the State Museum, Francisco Martínez (University of Helsinki, Finland)9. 'Good Enough' Fieldwork, 'Good Enough' Parenting: Recognising Idioms in the Field, Melissa Nolas and Christos Varvantakis (Goldsmiths, University of London, UK)10. Isomorphic Articulations: 'The Barely' in Collaborative Film-work with Afghan-Danish Women, Karen Waltorp (Aarhus University, Denmark)Conclusion, Mikkel Rytter (Aarhus University, Denmark)BibliographyIndex
