PAPER Project
PAPER. Power and Politics of/in Ethnographic Research.
The short version:
PAPER is a project that addresses questions of decoloniality (anti-racism, anti-colonialism, class, (dis)ability, and gender/sexual discrimination) in ethnographic fieldwork. Holding four open seminars across February and March 2021, PAPER aims to deliver a space where researchers in anthropology can approach these issues, and firmly embed the praxis of decoloniality into their anthropological work. We are delighted to invite you to be part of the PAPER project.
We ask the following questions: How can research praxis move beyond institutional legacies of colonialism? What are the potentials and limits of participant-observation? How do we relate with research participants? What responsibilities do we have towards them while representing their worlds?
The four seminars will be structured as open spaces of conversation and reflection, and will cover the following four broad topics. The events are free, and open for all students, scholars, and staff to attend - we hope to see you there!
The long version:
Introducing PAPER, Power and Politics of/in Ethnographic Research; a timely and imperative seminar series, interrogating the ongoing decolonisation of ethnographic fieldwork, with aims to instigate pedagogical progress within the department, enmeshing care as praxis and prioritising decolonial ethical practice within our discipline.
Created and run by PhD researchers, PAPER will address the power and positionality of the researcher within the delicate politics of participation and observation, and challenge ideas about representation, through an exploration of indigenous methodologies, collaborative authorship and the ways in which we acknowledge and share ethnographic time with our participants. This series will create an open space for students, staff and researchers to ask questions such as, how can we best create a research praxis that acknowledges and works to surpass the imperialist and extractivist history of our discipline? How do we develop and sustain relationships with our participants, both in and out of the field, in order to centre care and respect, whilst also mediating potential power imbalances?
This series is being run by researchers who are also in the process of de-learning and addressing their own positionality within these complex topics. That being said, whilst by no means experts on decoloniality, we are dedicated to structural institutional change by creating a space to discuss and challenge current fieldwork training and the pedagogy of ethical praxis. We hope this series will act as a small, but hopeful, step in the right direction.
Event structure:
Tickets to this event are FREE, but we are asking those that are able to make a financial contribution, do so to Free Black University, a project that exists to re-distribute knowledge and act as a space of incubation for the creation of transformative knowledge in the Black community. Every contribution is welcome, but we suggest that those on a fixed salary beyond minimum wage donate £10.
Any enquiries please contact us at papereventseries@gmail.com.
PAPER Event line-up:
Seminar 1 - February 9th, 6:30-8:30pm GMT, 7:30-9:30am NZ-time
Introduction and Institutions
Speakers: Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith author of Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, Toyin Agbetu UCL scholar and activist, Maria Danery Arias, ‘zero-hour’ contract UCL outsourced worker, member of IWGB.
Seminar 2 - February 23rd, 6pm GMT
The ethics and politics of witnessing and participating
Speakers: Dr Laura Agustín, author of Sex at the Margins: Migration, Sex Work, Trafficking, and the Rescue Industry, writing publicly as the Naked Anthropologist, and Harshadha Balasubramanian, UCL PhD Research Candidate
Seminar 3 - March 12th, 6pm GMT
Relationships
Speakers: Author, poet, and anthropologist Professor Ruth Behar, and Maya J. Berry, Assistant Professor of African Diaspora Studies at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH).
Seminar 4 - March 16th, 5pm GMT
The ethics and politics of representation
Speakers: Professor Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, leading the Refugee Hosts and Southern Responses projects, alongside Dr Julia Sauma, Lecturer in Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London.
For those who join the series, some considerations and housekeeping rules:
This is an open space, encouraging productive, yet challenging dialogue about complex and often uncomfortable issues. With this in mind, please be thoughtful and engage with integrity. There is no room for racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and classism in these seminars. Marginalised folk are under no obligation to educate you, share their experiences, or comfort you during these seminars, and we ask you to be mindful of any assumptions you make about others present at the events. We will have two moderators at our events; one managing the live chat, and the other on hand if any issues arise.
Trigger Warning: This series may include content that is distressing or uncomfortable, as we address examples of microaggressions in our department, intergenerational trauma and other forms of violences as a result of our discipline’s colonial history.
If at any time you need to leave the ‘room’, log-off, and take some time for yourself, please feel free to do so. The host can re-admit you (just send them a message if you’re able to so they can keep an eye on the waiting room).
Who are PAPER?
We are a small team, based at UCL’s Anthropology department, organising a series of seminars and workshops across the 2021 academic year. We are funded by UCL Changemakers and UCL Anthropology’s Anti-Racism Committee (ARC). The project itself was developed as a direct response to calls from UCL Anthropology PhD cohorts to address and implement anti-racist research practice, alongside our personal reflections (and frustrations) on the historical legacy of colonialism in anthropology, and our own experiences of ethnographic training. We, the organisers, are a group of researchers who are also in the process of de-learning and addressing their own positionality within these complex topics. Whilst by no means experts on decoloniality, we are dedicated to structural institutional change by creating a space to discuss and challenge current fieldwork training and the pedagogy of ethical praxis. We hope this series will act as a small, but hopeful, step in the right direction. You can contact us at papereventseries@gmail.com.