du 15 au 18 Septembre 2004 Ecole Normale Supérieure 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 PARIS

The first Ethnografeast took place from September 15-18, 2004 at UC Berkeley. An international conference organized by the journal Ethnography, Ethnografeast aimed to stimulate reflection on the ethnographic method and to create a cooperative network between ethnographers, especially between anthropologists and sociologists.

The sine qua non of anthropology, ethnography was initially incorporated into other disciplines as a supplement to more marginal methods–"qualitative" research in sociology, long overshadowed by quantitative approaches, and "oral history," traditionally spurned by historians in favor of written or material sources. As ethnographic research has gained currency in an ever-wider range of disciplines viz., psychology, political science, and, more recently, management and economics, its expansion has stirred doubts and inspired polemics within the very disciplines in which it was formed and refined, anthropology and sociology.

For these reasons, the second Ethnografeast will bring prominent ethnographic researchers in anthropology and sociology from different continents together with young European and American scholars whose work contributes to the development and extension of field methods.

Focused on the "making" of ethnography, this conference will investigate, over the course of four days, the composite steps in the production of ethnography, from the teaching of methods to publication and circulation among different audiences, scholarly or otherwise. Two evenings will also be devoted to screening documentaries.

Session 1. Ethnographic Practices (Wednesday, September 15)

The first day will focus on the ethnographic research of young scholars, with participants from other panels serving as discussants. These presentations attest to the revitalization–and to the continuing vitality–of ethnographic research.

Session 2. Ethnographic Archives ?(Thursday Morning, September 15)

What are the different modes of archiving ethnographic data, and what kinds of legal and moral problems do they pose? This session will provide an occasion to consider several 20^th Century attempts to organize ethnographic archives in France and elsewhere, raising issues that are becoming increasingly important given the rising use of ethnographic methods in other disciplines.

Session 3. The Historicity of Fieldwork ?(Thursday Afternoon, September 15)

This session will focus on the usefulness of returning to one’s own fieldsite, and of revisiting the fieldsites of other ethnographers–two practices that indicate the double historicity of ethnography–that of group that is studied, that of the academic milieu to which the ethnographer belongs. The topic of collective research, and the conditions that contributed to its decline and reemergence, will also be addressed.

The day will conclude with a round table discussion about the teaching of ethnographic methods in contemporary France.

Session 4. The Conditions of Ethnographic Research (Friday Morning, September 17)

What is the social status of ethnographers in the different local, national, and international social scenes, ranging from those endemic to the field, to the broader spheres of academia, politics, and the mass media, in which they are involved?

Session 5. The Uses of Ethnography (Friday Afternoon, September 17)

Focusing explicitly on the final stages of ethnographic research, this session will explore the moral issues and legal questions of intellectual/cultural property posed by different modalities of disseminating ethnographic knowledge: publication in scientific and/or popular venues, exhibitions, photography, and films and videos.

Session 6. Beyond Ethnography (Saturday, September 18)

This session .will explore the different opportunities for connecting ethnography with ongoing projects of social scientific model-building, including the newer totalizing paradigms of cognitive science on the one hand, and of economics and game theory on the other.