May 26, 2023 
Concordia University

EMERGE Collective

The EMERGE collective (at the time called Infrastructures of Ethnography) convened in-person to share results from the group’s first year of research and collaboration.

The Ethnography Studio led a workshop on protocols. As Melina Campos Ortiz (EMERGE Coordinator; PhD Student in Social and Cultural Analysis, Concordia University) wrote in her event recap, “Building on their work for Experimenting with Ethnography (Ballestero and Winthereik 2021), Andrea Ballestero (USC) and Katie Ulrich (USC/Rice) offered the metaphor of a live-cooking show as they put together a protocol for collaboration in real time. They went through the process on how porosities came to be, and together, we figured out the steps for a protocol around “Tentative Concepts.” While analysis was central to the experience, they showcased how admin and other usually unloved tasks are fundamental to collaboration (among students and universities alike). Admin tasks, they showed, not only make things happen but are also a feminist practice of care. In the coming academic year, each lab will be emulating this experiment to try to bring our varied approaches to the surface.”

Read the rest of Melina’s summary of the gathering.