By Johana Pokorney Thursday, January 29th, 2026, 5:00 – 6:00pm Room 330 – Ethnography Lab Boardroom 19 Ursula Franklin Street This session examines how skills and sensibilities honed through ethnographic research can be translated into qualitative research consulting projects and settings–and sometimes where they fail. Given that today many other professionals draw on similar methods, …
Please join us at the Ethnography Lab on Friday, December 5th, 5-6 pm, for a presentation of a work in progress by Eugene Slonimerov. 19 Ursula Franklin Street, Toronto, Ontario. Room 330 or online. The ongoing research project takes the site of the former Russian military installation in Tbilisi, Georgia as a non-human subject, a …
By Sydney Lang During my first week at CREST, I was shocked by the visible intimacy between students; they would hold hands, play games with each other, and hug each other often. This was in direct contrast to the interactions I had experienced in the public sphere, particularly on the bus, where women sit at … Continue reading
By Shannon McKechnie The students I met at CREST were forthcoming about the transitions they felt they went through during the program. They described being scared or nervous to participate and speak with each other or the program interns when they first arrived in Calicut, but by the end of the five month … Continue reading
By Sam Tait Long heralded as an oasis of ‘development,’ democracy, literacy, genderequality, caste consciousness and political mobilization against the formalized caste system (Devika 2010; Steur 2009), in truth, structural inequality arranged across caste lines persists in Kerala (Mosse 2010; Nampoothiri 2009; Isac 2011). Dr. Susamma Isac, a project officer at CREST, asserts that in … Continue reading
By Sara Christensen Kerala is a unique place. Within India, it is a state known for its development, both economic and social. Yet institutions such as the Centre for Research and Education for Social Transformation (CREST) are still needed. Although the caste system is now officially illegal in India, “former lowcaste citizens,” now referred to … Continue reading
Imaging Kensington is a series of informal meet-ups of members of the Ethnography Lab who explore Kensington Market in more depth through personal photography and focused discussions on multidisciplinary themes. This past month we have been using the concepts of palimpsest, facade and bricolage to seek new insights into ways that the past plays out in the present in the social, cultural and spatial … Continue reading
The Ethnography Lab is pleased to welcome Paul Hartley to the 2015-2016 Speaker Series on Friday, November 27th, 5-6pm, for a discussion about ethnographic action outside the academy. — An important transformation in business is creating the need for research at the point where applied anthropology, business, and design meet. This change is creating a … Continue reading
(Submission deadline extended until February 5, 2016.) We are proud to announce the call for proposals for the inaugural Ethnography in Canada conference, to be held on April 15, 2016 in Toronto. The conference is organized by graduate students and faculty of the Ethnography in Canada hub of the Ethnography Lab at the University of Toronto. Continue reading
Students from the University of Toronto’s Munk One program have recently completed a partnership with the Ethnography Lab to conduct mini ethnography projects. Each of the 29 students spent time in Toronto’s Kensington Market neighbourhood making observations, conducting informal interviews and writing ethnographic fieldnotes addressing an individual research theme. Each thematic project was also clustered … Continue reading
The Ethnography Lab is pleased to welcome Rebecca Gray to the 2015-2016 Speaker Series on Friday, November 13th, 5-6pm, for a discussion about ethnoarchaeology in the subarctic. In June 2015 I traveled to the community of Behchokǫ, NWT in order to interview Tłı̨chǫ elders, members of the Dene first nation, as a part of my … Continue reading
The Ethnography in Canada Hub will be having its third monthly discussion group on Thursday, November 26th from 5-6pm in The Ethnography Lab seminar room (Department of Anthropology, 19 Russell Street, Toronto). The theme of discussion will be: “How do we navigate our work as ethnographers in communities where we may have other roles, political commitments, or … Continue reading
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