Imagined Futures. Decentered Perspectives on Ethnographic Practice

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to discuss the ways in which the ethnographic practice, constituted in its classical developments under the wing of the anthropological discipline, is undergoing a set of tensions, challenges, and transformations in its contemporary exercises. In the midst of an intensification of inter-and transdisciplinary intersections, and of the accelerated and complex transitions towards the digital world, ethnography must rethink its processes as a method, approach, and writing practice. These negotiations are not devoid of conflicts and call us to understand how the current conditions of ethnographic production have favored the emergence of new ways of being present. This text serves as an introduction to the present issue of the journal and is based on the reading and discussion of specialized literature. In it, we question the current areas of friction of ethnography as an epistemological, ethico-political, methodological, and aesthetic practice, while we note the porous edges of its established definitions and envision critical perspectives that pave the way towards the futures of ethnography.