Please join the Ethnography Lab on February 28th, from 11-1pm EST for “Meet the Labs”: Emergent Methods for the Study of Mobility. Featuring:

* Biao Xiang, Director, The Mobility, Technology, and Well-Being Lab (MOLAB), Anthropology of Economic Experimentation, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology

* Tarini Bedi, Mobilities and Methods Lab, University of Illinois-Chicago, Director, and Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology

* Melissa Cefkin, Senior Staff Researcher, Waymo

The event will be moderated by: William F. Stafford, JR., Research Affiliate, Ethnography Lab
Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Visual Studies, University of Toronto Mississauga

Presented in collaboration with Wilfrid Laurier University as part of a research project on “Ubering the City,” supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Abstract: As mobility becomes ever more infrastructural, and its modes both more diverse and increasingly integrated, how do we make sense of what mobility as a social phenomenon entails? How do we understand mobility as a platform for thinking about and developing new technologies? How do we position socialities which develop through and within social relations uniquely mediated by mobility? How do we frame the intersections between mobilities of people and goods in the context of old and new forms of economic mediation? In this Meet The Labs panel discussion we will explore emergent framings of mobility as an object of research, and the institutional design and practice of its analysis, theorisation, and intervention.

***Register here: https://tinyurl.com/mujnf9bn

On the day of the event, a Zoom link will be sent to those who register.

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What is “Meet the Labs”?

In November 2020, the University of Toronto Ethnography Lab invited some of our sister labs to participate in a virtual roundtable event at the American Anthropology Associations’ “Raising our Voices” annual meeting. The event brought together members of the Center for Experimental Ethnography at University of Pennsylvania, the Center for Ethnography at UC Irvine, and the Ethnography Lab at Concordia University to reflect on the challenges and possibilities of doing ethnography under the shifting, uncertain and unstable conditions. Ethnography Labs and centers often occupy an interstitial place in the academic ecosystem as sites for collaboration, experimentation, and practice outside of departmental programs, relations of supervision, and the university itself.

Our “Meet the Labs” series is an extension of the AAA roundtable where we hope to connect and network with sister labs through a shared passion for ethnographic practice and methods. Together we will explore the possibilities of different organizational and institutional forms for the practice of ethnography. In spring of 2021, we had our second meeting, bringing together Igancio Farias and Tomas Criado of the Stadtlabor for Multimodal Anthropology at Humboldt University in Berlin, and Maka Suarez and Jorge Nunez from Kaleidos, the Center for Interdisciplinary Ethnography attached to the University of the Americas in Quito, Ecuador.

In the fall of 2022, we had our third meeting, bringing together Kate Hennessy from Making Culture Lab at Simon Fraser University and Elizabeth Chin from Laboratory of Speculative Ethnology at Art College Center of Design in California.

We are excited about the opportunity to build cross-disciplinary relationships through Ethnography with our colleagues in Chicago, California, and Munich, and we welcome anyone interested in thinking through what Labs have to offer our universities and communities and those who are interested in the important work being conducted at each of these organizations.

*This event will be recorded.