Playing ethnographically living well together: Collaborative ethnography as speculative experiment

Abstract

How can we live well together? The question is critical for cities, where “wicked problems” like failing infrastructure, natural and industrial disaster, and epidemic disease pose threats to diverse forms of life. Because such problems are by definition world-shattering, it is notoriously difficult for city-dwellers to agree on how to think about them, much less overcome them. This essay sketches a collaborative ethnographic approach for co-conceptualizing wicked problems. Proyecto Buen Vivir (The Living Well Project) features a series of multisector experimental workshops conducted over four years in Ciudad Sandino, Nicaragua. This workshop model draws on collaborative research design and active learning strategies from both Nicaraguan and North American pedagogical traditions. Collaborative methods have historically identified and addressed the discrete problems. Given that common understanding can be rather more elusive when grappling with wicked problems, this essay argues for collaborative methods oriented to speculation and play might also be more generative.