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.