The Art of Ethnography in Troubled Times

Abstract

Many of our longstanding set of methods and denotative conventions of representation are no longer in harmony with the state of contemporary social, political, environmental and economic dysfunction. How can we create a representation that goes beyond the academic communication in a troubled world? How can we create “stories”, which work as the glue that holds people together, in order to connect with them? This is the basic question in the Art of Ethnography, an idea that begins with Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s, in his essay Eye and Mind. This piece suggests that the work of art is a pathway to an embodied enlightenment that can enable us to practice what Michael Jackson has called “the art of life”. It is the result of several aspects. For example, space and place, which are alive with memory, or dialogue, which is a window into personality of the characters, since it defines the people we study and makes them particular. This is a moment of troubled times, but also a moment of adaptation to our modes of representation, and an opportunity to develop the Art of Ethnography.