AO: Binaries and metaphors are not used explicitly but in naming a reconstitution of anthropology towards “elites,” the analysts are also implying the opposite of elites (non-elites) who anthropologists have more commonly studied. The analysts assume a particular researcher (one for whom engagement with elites is part of “real life”) (83).
AO: Like Matsutake group, they explicitly note they are not interested in a division of labor (86)
AO: They give an example of collaboration with “Bert” who eventually wrote a book on ethnography for Bert’s own intellectual project. They note: “This clearly and materially represented an appropriation of George and Doug’s thinking about anthropology for the purposes of Bert’s own intellectual projects in his space.” At first glance, I wondered if it meant that to be/have an “epistemic partner”, the partner has to also produce a similar (equal) output - i.e. books. But in the context of my project, I think that this would be for example, multiple different users (and uses) of the ethnographic data generated and collected. I.e. if the other research groups within the soon to be collective (do we need to think of a name to describe what this will be??) were to use the data, would that be the equivalent to what Holmes and Marcus here and the example of Bert publishing a book with their knowledge? I think perhaps even the annotation structure (if the others annotate the data) could also be this kind of (counter) para-ethnographic moves.
AO: The analysts in this piece are describing similar (but much more nuanced) ideas about reciprocol benefits from research. The idea that the ethnographer and their work can also be appropriated by the research “subject” What is different/more nuanced about this type of “reciprocol benefit” than some of the other works like Pillay which ring hollow? I think it relates to the “shared conceptual labor” they discuss which makes the benefits more clearly symmetrical (even if not equal per say). This is where the term “found reflexive subjects” is I think key. The idea being not that you can have such a collaborative relationship with everyone and anyone but rather, there are particular individuals/groups with whom this kind of work has the potential to be more reciprocally beneficial.
AO: The analysts argued that drawing on the “analytical acumen and existential insights of research subjects to recast the intellectual imperatives of the researcher’s own methodological practices, in short, the para-ethnographic practices of subjects” is key (82).
AO: deferring to subject’s mode of knowing (82) and deferral to appropriation (93)
AO: renegotiation of the rules of engagement with the dialogic, epistemic subject opens the intellectual space for a rethinking of collaboration. (85)
AO: “conceptual work of an altogether different order is going on when the categories that inform the ethnog- rapher’s frame are being appropriated.” (93)
AO: “shared conceptual labor” (97)
AO: The analysts do not discuss material infrastructures.
AO: The analysts do not discuss data infrastructures.
AO: The analysts do not discuss technical infrastructures.
AO: The analysts argue that within some communities (they name the Central bank of Chile or an environmental NGO in Costa Rica or an alternative art space in Tokyo), there are preexisting ethnographic consciousness or curiousity (termed para-ethnography). They argue that these groups should be perceived as epistemic partners in collaborative ethnography (84).
AO: A researcher who operates under the methodological premise of deferral allows for generative different collaborative confirgurations of ethnography (82).
AO: para-ethnographic communities that have a critical consciousness and novel registers of politics and experience (83)
AO: engaging with research “subjects” as “epistemic partners that define the imaginary and plot of our own inquiries” (83)
AO: Analysts mention that ethnography advances today by “deferring to, absorbing, and being altered by found reflexive subjects” (84)
AO: Unlike many of the discussions about “bringing together people from diverse disciplinary backgrounds”, these analysts interestingly note that they are not interested in collaboration “as a gesture to a canonical interdisciplinarity” (86)
AO: The analysts argue that contemporary ethnography’s preferred collaboration is with “the expert” who is now a preferred subject because within the expert’s cultural milieu, cultural forms are being devised and enacted. (82).
AO: They authors give examples like George’s work with Mascarenhas where the roles of anthropologist and subject were unsettled and a game of mutual deferral and appropriation (88)
AO: The analysts note that their restating of field relationships includes a sense of the “dynamics of power and the intellectual standing of the reflexive subject. For us, collaboration is overt, epistemic, and mutually invested in.” (85)