Elana Zilberg

Cultural anthropology’s canonical methodology, ethnography, has had lives beyond our discipline. In particular it has been taken up in recent transdisciplinary ‘design’ initiatives as object of inquiry. In this workshop, we propose to examine how our discipline’s primary methodology has been transformed by its use in different contexts and to bring those insights back to anthropological practice. ‘Productive Encounters’ will be the culmination of a two-year project on the part of ethnographers within the University of California system. Networked under a grant from the UC President, a group of 40 scholars from across UC campuses has been exploring ethnography as method within and beyond anthropological practice. We are conducting four mini-workshops (spring and fall 2015, winter and spring 2016) to explore the design of ethnography: how we brainstorm and conduct our research; what collaboration with colleagues, students, and interlocutors can be; and how we address and summon publics through our ethnographic practice. We intend, in our proposed workshop, to extend our conversation, bringing together leading scholars from around the world to examine the state of ethnographic practice within and beyond anthropology, to share innovations in this methodology, and to propose new forms of ethnography emphasizing collaboration and the design process.