What is the broader epistemological significance of feeling awkward for the anthropological project? Ethnography is always improvisational, and mistakes are bound to happen, but we must engage with - and write critically - about them. Performance ethnography is not collaborative by default, and collaboration between researchers and interlocutors “often involves negotiating different interests and conflicting agendas”. Anthropologists tend to monopolize reflexivity in their writing, which does little to shift problematic power dynamics. We need to move beyond our own positionality in our reflexive writing. Trailing awkwardness through ethnography and pursuing an “awkward anthropology” can shift the lens of reflexivity and unsettle power dynamics between researcher and interlocutor, thus leading to a different kind of collaborative anthropology.

Read insights from the talk here: https://www.urgentemergent.org/talking-uncertainty/kazubowski-houston.

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