AO: They do not talk about this explicitly but they note the collaborative milieu that is now the normative environment of research (which is supported by research grants and “broader impacts” sections of grant proposals, etc. (86)
AO: The analysts use post-structuralist work to aruge that the current imaginary of the “subject as informant” does not stand given the desire for the epistemic partner to perform an intellectual operation. The analysts argue that the renegotiation of the rules of engagement with the dialogic, epistemic subject opens the intellectual space for a rethinking of collaboration.
AO: The analysts are engaging with two senses of the term collaboration (which they argue they are not using). First are critiques of collaboration with the less powerful and formally silent subject in traditional ethnography. Second are the “collaboratory of the information age and the operating ethos of the organziations that define the processes that anthropologists study worldwide”; the blending into the ideological order (i.e. going along with the collaborative milieu but still functioning under the independent fieldworker conception of fieldwork (85).
AO: the analysts build on Marcus work on “complicity” in multi-sited work and Holmes’ work at the European parliament (88)
AO: The analysts do not think of collaboration as a new methodological tool (as it has for example been treated in development work), rather, they argued that it is central to the refunctioning of ethnography given the changing times. They are concerned with ethnography and its place in contemporary times.
AO: A discursive risk in this analysis is the assumption of intellectual partners among “elite” communities. I think the example of “professionalized” Kibera research subjects who have developed critical perspectives and analytics about the work of researchers on them and could also be interesting intellectual partners with whom a collaborative engagement could happen if executed with nuance and sensitivity (and long standing commitment to the site). If such a case could be enacted, I think it could fit many of the conditions noted by the analysts but provide an alternative to the types of communities they give as examples and open up an interesting way of rethinking some of even those “older” more “traditional” anthropological projects.
AO: Going back to the “same subjects” that Anthropology has long been interested in (the development subject) perhaps with this approach advocated by Holmes and Marcus could possibly change the type of work and collaboration. The analysts write: “we must first meet expectations that anticipate what ethnography might mean for them and for us” (83) as if this is unique to working with elites but I believe this must also be a key part of good (ethical) research more generally. I think instead of the notion of collaboration with “elites,” another terms they use, “found reflexive subjects” could better categorize this kind of important work and broaden beyond assumptions of a particular economic class of people or occupation.