Doing ethnography with, on and after Coronavirus – Examples of Central Asia Presented by Dr Peter Finke
Abstract
The outbreak of the Corona pandemic took all of us by surprise, although epidemiologists have warned about the possibility of such events for years. Even more a surprise was certainly the spread of the virus in such a short time, and the severity of the consequences, not only in terms of death toll and the economic precarity it caused for millions of people across the globe, but also in the effects it had on everyone’s life. Nothing is anymore the same it was just half a year ago.
This also had impacts on our way of doing things in anthropology, or rather preventing us from following our research interests and commitments. It is still early and therefore the conclusions the pandemic has on our discipline or the social sciences can only be very tentative. We simply don’t know what is waiting around the corner.
Using the example of Central Asia, where my own field experience lies, I want to speculate on four issues, namely Corona preventing fieldwork, as well as doing ethnography with, on and after Corona. Of course, there are potential remedies at hand, such as online or cyber ethnography, but these have been designed for different purposes and will change the kind of data we collect, and also the questions we ask.
Some of the issues or lessons I would like to talk about include, on the one hand, the new global connectivity Corona created, or maybe rather the awareness of the already existing it brought to the surface, as well as, on the other, the danger of a new degree of xenophobia and a general mistrust it may give rise to, partly for exactly the same reason. But, as mentioned, the situation is still very volatile and dynamic, so all we can say and think about at this point is only preliminary. If there is one thing that anthropology can help us with in understanding the situation and modelling as a recipe, it is the human flexibility and resilience that we have been trying to describe for such a long time.
About the speaker
Prof. Dr. Peter Finke is the Chair and full professor for Social Anthropology, University of Zurich since 2006 and Co-director of the Zurich-Halle Centre for Anthropological Studies on Central Asia (CASCA). Between 2000 and 2006 he was a Research Fellow and Head of a Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle.
Peter Finke specializes in the processes of transformation in the formerly socialist states of Central Asia. He is an expert in economic anthropology and theory. He has field experience in Central Asia for almost 30 years. Since 1991 Peter Finke has conducted field research among Kazak pastoralists in western Mongolia and the effects that the transformation from a socialist to a market-like economy had on the livelihoods of people. Together with Meltem Sancak he also worked among Kazaks who had migrated from China to Kazakstan after the latter's independence. In 2000 he started doing research on collective identity in Uzbekistan.
About the workshop
COVID-19 is fundamentally changing academic research landscape. Humanities and social sciences, relying heavily on fieldwork for data collection, are particularly hit hard by the pandemic. The cessation of travel opportunities brought by international or domestic travel bans and limitations has forced many researchers to either change, postpone, or even cancel their original research plans. As a group of social science PhD students from U21 universities, we are launching a Social Sciences Online Writing Workshop to self-empower ourselves by innovatively refreshing research skills and writing collaboratively and inter-disciplinarily.
We are looking for doctoral students who:
1. are major in humanities and social sciences;
2. have to reframe research projects because of COVID-19;
3. are expecting transitions of data sources from onsite to online;
4. are interested in learning more interdisciplinary research method;
5. are open to interdisciplinary writing and publishing;
6. need to know more pandemic-stricken PhD fellows;
Welcome to join us if you meet one or more of the above criteria! You may send an email to shekegongfang@126.com) so that we could add you into our emailing list to keep you stay tuned.
Doing ethnography with, on and after Coronavirus – Examples of Central Asia Presented by Dr Peter Finke
Venue
Abstract
The outbreak of the Corona pandemic took all of us by surprise, although epidemiologists have warned about the possibility of such events for years. Even more a surprise was certainly the spread of the virus in such a short time, and the severity of the consequences, not only in terms of death toll and the economic precarity it caused for millions of people across the globe, but also in the effects it had on everyone’s life. Nothing is anymore the same it was just half a year ago.
This also had impacts on our way of doing things in anthropology, or rather preventing us from following our research interests and commitments. It is still early and therefore the conclusions the pandemic has on our discipline or the social sciences can only be very tentative. We simply don’t know what is waiting around the corner.
Using the example of Central Asia, where my own field experience lies, I want to speculate on four issues, namely Corona preventing fieldwork, as well as doing ethnography with, on and after Corona. Of course, there are potential remedies at hand, such as online or cyber ethnography, but these have been designed for different purposes and will change the kind of data we collect, and also the questions we ask.
Some of the issues or lessons I would like to talk about include, on the one hand, the new global connectivity Corona created, or maybe rather the awareness of the already existing it brought to the surface, as well as, on the other, the danger of a new degree of xenophobia and a general mistrust it may give rise to, partly for exactly the same reason. But, as mentioned, the situation is still very volatile and dynamic, so all we can say and think about at this point is only preliminary. If there is one thing that anthropology can help us with in understanding the situation and modelling as a recipe, it is the human flexibility and resilience that we have been trying to describe for such a long time.
About the speaker
Prof. Dr. Peter Finke is the Chair and full professor for Social Anthropology, University of Zurich since 2006 and Co-director of the Zurich-Halle Centre for Anthropological Studies on Central Asia (CASCA). Between 2000 and 2006 he was a Research Fellow and Head of a Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle.
Peter Finke specializes in the processes of transformation in the formerly socialist states of Central Asia. He is an expert in economic anthropology and theory. He has field experience in Central Asia for almost 30 years. Since 1991 Peter Finke has conducted field research among Kazak pastoralists in western Mongolia and the effects that the transformation from a socialist to a market-like economy had on the livelihoods of people. Together with Meltem Sancak he also worked among Kazaks who had migrated from China to Kazakstan after the latter's independence. In 2000 he started doing research on collective identity in Uzbekistan.
About the workshop
COVID-19 is fundamentally changing academic research landscape. Humanities and social sciences, relying heavily on fieldwork for data collection, are particularly hit hard by the pandemic. The cessation of travel opportunities brought by international or domestic travel bans and limitations has forced many researchers to either change, postpone, or even cancel their original research plans. As a group of social science PhD students from U21 universities, we are launching a Social Sciences Online Writing Workshop to self-empower ourselves by innovatively refreshing research skills and writing collaboratively and inter-disciplinarily.
We are looking for doctoral students who:
1. are major in humanities and social sciences;
2. have to reframe research projects because of COVID-19;
3. are expecting transitions of data sources from onsite to online;
4. are interested in learning more interdisciplinary research method;
5. are open to interdisciplinary writing and publishing;
6. need to know more pandemic-stricken PhD fellows;
Welcome to join us if you meet one or more of the above criteria! You may send an email to shekegongfang@126.com) so that we could add you into our emailing list to keep you stay tuned.