Postcards Post‐Petroleras: Exploring Collaborative Ethnography via Mail from the Venezuelan Diaspora

Abstract

Postcards, as ‘travelling communication devices’, have been identified as excellent tools for their ability to collapse ‘the field’ in a new, visually experiential way. Though often presented as a (post)colonial medium that has exoticized ‘the other’, they may also be able to give snapshots of diverse biographies otherwise silenced, and can therefore be utilised as a form of collaborative ethnography. This paper analyses postcards sent from Venezuelans living in Bogota during the pandemic. It will suggest that when migrants express lived‐experience via postcards, the coloniality of the medium is challenged and reimagined as collaborative ethnography.