Analyze

It seems to me that our era is one of dispersion and disarticulation. This is not the same as the siloed domains of disciplinary society. These siloes are what has been undone. Cultural critique and also even transdisciplinarity have, I think, at times, been both symptomatic and catalyst of this wide-spread historical trend of dispersion. That doesn't mean we need to return to the siloes, it means we need to be smarter and more intentional in the way we coordinate our critiques and our collaborations.

It seems to me that what we need are new skills and expertise in what could be called "regrouping." This is a key dynamic of anthropology and ethnography since its very beginning. But it's even more apparent in contemporary, multi-sited/sighted ethnography: i.e. the intentionally constructed research designs inspired by Marcus's early work on the method.

I think we need theoretically informed coordinational capacities. Experimenting with new kinds of partnerships, organizational designs, production and flows of information.

We need social media skills, organizational skills, community organizing skills, expertise on environmental research; teaching;

Some of the most important things I think EcoGovLab needs to be skilled in is being able to identify solution pathways for problems we find and problems that are brought to us. We need to be able to clearly envision the actions we need to take in order to respond to problems that will answer research questions. In order to achieve this the lab should be able to connect lab members to these real world problems. This way the lab is able to connect people to research questions while achieving the lab's overall goals. We also have to continue to practice flexibility so that we are always positioned to take on new things while still following through with ongoing research. Communication is another skill everyone should be good at in order to maintain the collaboration and connectivity amongst the lab. When it comes to more technical skills I won't list all of those since I think any skill can fit into the lab and help us move forward. Which again reiterates the point that we should value different perspectives when it comes to approaching our research questions.

In our group we had Dr. Jessica Sewell come speak to us a little while ago about her book Women and the Everyday City and we landed on the topic of “imaginaries of space” for a long time. And the visual politics of space- so how do we notice things? What do we notice? What seems out of place or in place. Thinking about how imaginaries make certain presences completely invisible (thinking here about gendered labor, black labor, and more). And how powerful imaginaries are, how they intersect with our construction of language. But also how resistance can work with these imaginaries.. thinking about women’s sort of take over of dept stores during the suffrage movement as an extension of their private space, a space for organizing. This is long winded way of trying to think through COVID-19 national models in the context of national imaginaries. What has been puzzling me is so many Americans’ response to the Swedish model of governing in Covid and how imaginaries of Sweden have been warped in such a way that there is a complete erasure of how xenophobic policies have gained traction in Sweden in recent years.