Escaping the Game of Representation

In my doctoral research, I work on memory practices of youth collectives in Quibdó, capital of the department of the Chocó (Colombian Pacific). Chocó is a territory marked by many stigmas, and Afro-Colombian youth in Quibdó is considered O…

It Takes More Than One To Hold Complexity

This article discusses the potentials and challenges of psychoanalytically oriented “interpretation workshops”: interpretive, collective spaces that address ethnographic fieldwork’s subconscious, emotional, and experiential aspects. While …

Rethinking the Role of Payments in Research

Navigating payments in ethnographic research provides insights into social dynamics within ethnographic research contexts. Drawing from research with financially vulnerable queer male sex workers in Nairobi, Kenya, this article explores th…

The Question of Gatekeeping Consent

Conducting fieldwork in collaboration with NGOs is becoming increasingly common. However, the process and difficulties of obtaining organizational access are rarely outlined in ethnographic literature. This article unravels the author’s expe…

Anthropology of Toxicity

Uncertainty, disavowal, forgetting, and stigmatisation are common responses to toxicity: dumping grounds are habitually portrayed as ‘strange, alien spaces with no comprehensive histories’ (Little and Akese 2024). How can we best face this s…

“I used to be a traitor”

This article discusses adult conversion in the Russian Baptist community as the unlearning of old sinful ways of living. Russian Baptists see conversion as an act of repentance, surrendering to Christ, and becoming born again, and as a life-…

Singing Wives and Oligarch Patrons

Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork on Swedo-Russian musical collaborations, this article explores the link between popular music and the conspicuous consumption of Russia’s wealthy elite. Presenting two specific cases, one following a…

Zagaku

The majority of this article consists of an unadulterated piece of auto-ethnographic writing depicting a key experience from my anthropological fieldwork. For my PhD research on Japanese policing, I spent two years living in Tokyo and traini…

Making Friends and Playing the Game

Bribery relations are a way to cope with the uncertainties of everyday life for many people living in Tanzania. For members of the Tanzanian Indian communities, the uncertainties not only count the faltering bureaucratic systems and a state …