What 1.5-order Ethnography Poses:

A Collaborative Reflection on the Ways of Doing Anthropology

Abstract

  Doing fieldwork in “their” place and writing ethnographies to “our” readers is anthropology’s traditional way to produce knowledge. Yet today’s changing circumstances of the discipline elevate the significance of revisiting how to do anthropology. Forming a research group of “professional” anthropologists who undertake collaborative projects with non-academic actors and a practitioner of ethnography in a consulting company, we observed mutually what anthropologists do in the field and discussed it over shared field notes. It was tricky research since it blurred boundaries between the researcher and the researched, and between on and off hours. We dub this experimental method “1.5-order ethnography.” Our research suggests that our notion of doing anthropology should be expanded enough to include seemingly-peripheral jobs, such as drafting proposal or playing any role expected by interlocutors, as its integral part, and that the feature of doing anthropology is to keep (excessively-)detailed notes on the field.