By Javiera Araya-Moreno
During a workshop at the Ethnography Lab, we talked about how to learn to do ethnography. One way of learning, I propose in this blog, is to read ethnographies. And particularly one part of them: the stories that seem secondary in comparison to the main arguments of the book.
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By Maya Lamothe-Katrapani
Montreal Waterways meets the CIRM is a series of two blog entries that respond to my experience walking along urban water in Montreal with The Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Montréal. Here I address my personal relationship with water in cities and how the CIRM’s conferences-experiences allowed me to rethink my encounters with the St-Lawrence river in the winter. Read more
By Alexandria Hammond, Iris Stefani June, Melina Campos Ortiz, Neha Chugh and Alia Nurmohamed.
The antihero-motherhood reading group started as a project to expand theoretical horizons, exchange methodological practices, and build a community around a somehow silenced topic amid social distancing fatigue. The following series of micro-blogs are the reading group’s response to the Festival International du Film Ethnographique du Québec (FIFEQ)’s invitation to the Concordia Ethnography Lab to write about the films premiered during their 2022 edition last May. Read more
By Melina Campos Ortiz
Abolissons les tropiques is an experimental auto-ethnographic piece written in three blog entries. In this third and final entry, I present how paying attention to snow sensoria is helping me to find my place both in a new city and in my “tropical” upbringing.
By Hanine El Mir, christian scott martone donde, and Irmak Taner
How do people work alone together? Studying success and community among Montreal indie gamers during Covid.
By Emma Tallon
Since moving to Montreal in September, I have been struggling with finding a sense of home in my new surroundings. This blog deals with feelings of loss, abandonment, insecurity, and unknowingness. Above all, it is a personal exploration of my reconceptualization of home beyond four walls.
By Afshan Golriz
My fieldwork in Volcán de Buenos Aires, Costa Rica over 11 years has been marked by the ongoing struggle to understand where the presence of Del Monte’s Pindeco, the region’s pineapple-producing agricultural giant, falls within discourses of ethics, extractivism, and unequal distributions of power within capitalist structures. Such ethical dilemmas have become increasingly puzzling when faced with the every day realities of Volcanians, as demonstrated in the following excerpt from my field notes. Read more
By Melina Campos Ortiz
In February 2020, I was invited to join a team studying snow at the Concordia Ethnography Lab. Less than a month later, COVID-19 kicked in, and I had to start my studies, not in Montreal but San José, Costa Rica, where I was born and raised. Now in Montreal, I continue my exploration of space, place, and north-south power relations in knowledge production. This blog is the second of a series where I engage with seasonality from my embodied experience. Read more
by John Neufeld
Smoke filled skies on the path to the field brought with it a mixed bag of emotion, stirring up reflections that have served as a prelude to my fieldwork in Alberta. When wildfire smoke becomes part of everyday sensory experience how does it shape the individual or collective emotionality and meaning related to climate change, ecological grief, or denial? Read more
By Melina Campos Ortiz
In February 2020, I was invited to join a team studying snow at the Concordia Ethnography Lab. Less than a month later, COVID-19 kicked in, and I had to start my studies not in Montreal but San José, Costa Rica, where I was born and raised. Snow is profoundly alien to me. How am I supposed to understand or explain it if I cannot engage in its sensation? Read more
