Archive Ethnography is an emerging, experimental way to produce, curate, communicate and politically activate ethnographic knowledge. It involves the curation of purposefully diverse data for an ethnographer’s own analysis and interpretation; it enables collaborations with other ethnographers, with researchers in other disciplines and with the people and systems  ethnographers study (with special interest in their data practices and infrastructures); it is mindful of its own encoded ideology and enables many different forms of ethnographic expression and engagement. 

In this seminar, we’ll work collaboratively to advance both the theory and practice of archive ethnography. Our work will have two streams: We’ll read widley to curate a set of critical concepts that can underpin and direct the development of archive ethnography.  We’ll also play with possibilities for the design, building and activation of ethnographic archives, collections, exhibits and installations.  Through a series of sketching exercises, seminar participants will design and begin to develop their own ethnographic archives and exhibits, in process considering their data types and preservation plans, privacy and security concerns, copyright issues, and the politics and poetics of their own data infrastructure. 

Each week, seminar participants will annotate two or more articles|chapters that will help us refine and articulate concepts relevant to archive ethnography -- with options so that readings can sync with participants’ varied interests.  Each week, seminar participants will also work on and share a cluster of sketches through which they assess and creatively plan for the archive needs and potentials of their own projects (current and future).  Annotations and sketches should be shared by Tuesdays at noon so that there is time for others in the seminar to review in advance of our meeting on Thursday.  We’ll set up a rotation so that these reviews are shared among the group. Please plan on this schedule. In early December, seminar participants will share draft designs of their own ethnographic archive, detailing a number of collections that will be built and a plan for an ethnographic installation or exhibit. 

Our seminar meetings will be used as an opportunity to draw our varied insights together, digitally formatted in ways that can support archive ethnography going forward.  This will be an experiment in what can be called seminar archiving.  During seminar meetings, we’ll discuss an array of concepts -- and how they should best be named -- supporting archive ethnography.  We’ll read across various texts to refine key concepts, practicing collaborative hermeneutics (itself a key concept). We’ll sketch together to build our capacity to design ethnographic archives, collections, exhibits and installations.  And we’ll lay the ground needed to sketch your own ethnographic archive. 

The success of the seminar will depend on a deeply collaborative approach to the seminar itself,  generous cooperation among participants, openness to diverse ideas, and the creative patience needed to help paradigms and methods shift.  We’ll work together to scaffold these.