sutton074

February surprised us with what one might call an ideal winter day: cold but as sunny as can be. We started our walk at Overveen. Walking and talking we discussed a topic that was not directly at hand, but is in every scholars life: literature. Although we did not read, also not in preparation for this seminar, we dedicated our time to the topic “how to relate to the literature”?  Our question was not  which  literatures to relate to, but  how  it is variously possible to do so. It is possible to read hunting for facts. Eagerly; hungrily. Or it is possible to seek to be surprised by a text. Amused; seduced. Sometimes our reading is critical; it may also be generous, curious, rebellious. What more? When; what do these various modes of reading offer? How to maybe read friends critically; or enemies generously? How to relate to old literatures (what to learn about their ‘context’)? How to read new literatures (and not get too impressed by their hotness)? How t...

The weather forecast had threatened us with rain the entire week and only in the last instance was a bit more optimistic. And we fell lucky. When in Castricum station we stood in a circle so that everyone could present herself to the others, the sun appeared behind the clouds. And it stayed with us the rest of the afternoon. Most of the talk-walkers assembled had participated in a workshop on ‘valuing plants’ the previous day. So though our call was to widely address the topic of valuing*, there were lots of plants roaming through the various conversations. But not just plants. Also water. Dunes. Sand. Markets. Adverts. Money. Labour. Justice. Energy quota. Many of us were new to each other. But the format of the walking seminar worked its magic and we had spirited conversations. Each time until the timer signalled that it was time to talk with someone else again. *Here’s a description of this edition’s topic “valuing”: What if we shift from the noun, values (that people may have) to t...

Last Friday September 22nd, 13 scholars walk-talked a hike from Overveen to Sandpoort-Noord, discussing the topic: Questions to do with doings. What started off as a rainy introduction round at the platform in Overveen, turned into a beautiful, sunny hike along dunes, a fairy-tale-like swan-lake and early-autumn-coloured woods.    As we walked, we discussed about ways to capture practices and doings in ethnographic fieldwork and writing. How to phrase questions in ways that will help us understanding what our interlocutors do- and that they might take for granted? How to write about practices in a way that is not just descriptive? How to create a text that is touching (or provocative) while writing about practices that are often mundane? These discussions also brought us back to more fundamental questions, such as: why is it that in this specific research, we want to study practices, rather than narratives for example, or what do we mean by “practices” in the first place? Mea...

The topic of our next walking seminar will be "Questions to do with doing". As present day researchers, we tend to not just want to learn about people’s opinions (beliefs, feelings), we also seek to know what they do. Classically, this is where participant observation comes in. This allows for the observations of  doings.  However, sometimes such observation is not so easy to accomplish. The  doings  are too intimate or too rare or too dangerous and so on.  Which leaves us with interviews. How to do interviews that teach you about doings? Which questions to ask? How to get through too self-evident, or non-verbal and/or contentious aspects of practices?  And then, at a later stage (for if you have gathered all your materials this walking seminar is still for you!) – how to write about practices – on which/whose terms? How may we best navigate in our writing between academic language(s) and field/interview words? Be welcome to join our walk-talk on septe...

On the last day of March we had another Walking Seminar edition, this time on the topic When is good good enough? Although the weather was not as perfect as expected it was good enough to facilitate a good walk-talk. We walked through the beautiful dunes of Overveen. Rain and wind made this walk into a four-hour exercise of academic exchange, methodological thinking-along and body-mind stamina. We talked about finished texts, enough work and different goods we encounter when writing; throwing out good pieces in order to better the text in general, focusing on one topic and (for now) letting go of other interesting ones and how to decide when we have done enough (fieldwork or writing). Sometimes we also talked about different goods that emerge in our field or different goods as a strategy to look at our field. This was the topic that triggered are talks: When is good good enough? One of the many enemies of a researcher/author is perfectionism. Obviously, we want to give good presentat...

The next walking seminar will be on Friday March 31st from 12.15 until early evening. This walking seminar will be devoted to the question " when is good good enough ". One of the many enemies of a researcher/author is perfectionism. Obviously, we want to give good presentations, write good texts, make good films and otherwise be and do good. However, at some point striving after doing better, better and better still, turns itself against us. It may block the fluid writing of an outline and/or a first rough draft – as what comes out of your hands isn’t, you feel, good enough. It may lead to endlessly postponing the moment you invite others in to comment – as what there is to comment on is not yet good enough. It may fuel insecurity, give stress, what have you. In secondary school you mostly got assignments with questions and these all had a right answer. You may have learned to like to feel intellectually in command. However, in doing research and engaging in original writin...

On the most beautiful day of the week and in stunning autumn weather, we took a walk in Weesp last Friday, 21 October, for the Walking Seminar. The theme was   how to think about translations in our research?   [1] We started off with the following questions:  Doing research involves translating. Or, put differently, many activities that we engage in as ethnographic researchers may be glossed as translating. Events in the field you translate into (mould into? cook up as?) field notes. Notes you translate into (mobilise in the telling of? digest so that they become?) stories. Stories you juxtapose – contrast, compare, link – in a process called analysis (and what is translated there into what?). In the process, sounds become words, tastes dissolve in sentences, questions into assertions or vice versa. Here is the question: what is involved in these translations; what in attending to them as translations (rather than using other metaphors/models such as moulding or cooking)...