Experimental Methods for Ethnographic Research, Gathering, + Exchange
A Matrix for Ethnographic Collaboration + Practice
EMERGE-A Matrix for Ethnographic Collaboration + Practice is a distributed project with ethnography research spaces based in Canada and the USA, and with collaborators undertaking work around the world.
This project takes as its starting point ethnography with its roots as the traditional methodology of anthropologists, based on situated participant observation, mixed qualitative data-collection, and non-reductive forms of representation. It has recently become popular in other disciplines and outside the academy, making it a site of increasingly interdisciplinary methodological thinking. And from there, embraces how collaboration and experimental methods can advance the future of anthropology.
As an acronym, it represents a group committed to Experimental Methods for Ethnographic Research, Gathering, and Exchange. As a verb, captures the energetic and generative co-creation across five ethnography research spaces in Canada and the USA with professors and both graduate and undergraduate students.
EMERGE reflects the spirit of collaboration enacted through the merging of ideas, spaces, and futures in training and practice. As a group, we are emerging into new spaces for generative ethnography today from which there is horizontal learning and a commitment to multi-modal efforts. In this effort, we EMERGE together to co-create a matrix of interdisciplinary collectiveness from which new methods, ideas, practices, and connections grow.
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The work of EMERGE recognizes the traditional territories upon which each member works as either invited or uninvited guests. We are committed to honouring and enacting respect and ethics in the work we do on all traditional and ancestral lands. We do so by recognizing the problematic early days of the field of anthropology and centering an ethical present and future for the field of anthropology.
The naming of EMERGE–A Matrix for Ethnographic Collaboration + Practice was co-created by the Communications Sub-Committee made up of Derek Pasborg, Donna Langille, Savannah Kosteniuk, Carlos Eduardo Olaya Díaz, and Dr. Fiona P. McDonald. The logo represents each of the five research spaces of the Matrix and the energy to exchange ideas and respect between each team member. The website and logo are designed by Alex Custodio in collaboration with Dr. Fiona P. McDonald and Derek Pasborg.
EMERGE is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Partnership Development Grant (PI: Kregg Hetherington, CO-I: Bart Simon, Fiona P. McDonald, Joshaua Barker, Andrew Gilbert, Deborah Thomas, Andrea Ballestero, Marcle LaFlamme.
© EMERGE 2023