April 8–10, 2014

Ambiguity and Experimentation: A Collaborative Ethnography of the State

This seminar convened a team of British, U.S., and Peruvian anthropologists who collectively carried out an ethnography of regional governance and state decentralization in Cusco, Peru. The project explores forms of ambiguity, uncertainty, and experimentation that are constitutive of neoliberal governance in six field sites and four development projects located in Cusco’s Vilcanota Valley. The seminar allowed the team to expand its collaborative field research experience during a period in which team members are both geographically dispersed and involved in divergent professional communities.

The seminar co-chairs stated, “Our goals for the seminar were to draft an outline for a jointly authored English language publication on collaborative ethnography. We were particularly interested to explore how our diverse research trajectories and sites of professional engagement had shaped the research process.” Three days of fruitful discussion and collaboration resulted in the group’s intention to complete and disseminate a research monograph by Drs. Poole and Harvey, produce a team-authored English language essay on collaborative ethnography, spearhead a public event to be organized with the Colegio de Antropólogos (Professional School of Anthropologists) in Cusco, and re-design the project website.

Penelope Harvey, Chair
Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Manchester, U.K.

Deborah Poole, Chair
Professor, Department of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University

Jimena Lynch Cisneros
Anthropologist, Ministerio de Cultura, Peru

Jorge Legoas
PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology, Laval University, Quebec

Teresa Tupayachi Mar
Anthropologist, Centre for Regional and Andean Studies, Bartolomé de las Casas, Cusco, Peru

Michal Osterweil
Lecturer, Department of Global Studies, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Annabel Pinker
Associate Lecturer, Division of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge

Isaias Rojas-Perez
Assistant Professor , Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Rutgers University, Newark