In Search of Lost Futures: Anthropological Explorations in Multimodality, Deep Interdisciplinarity, and Autoethnography

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In Search of Lost Futures asks how imaginations might be activated through practices of autoethnography, multimodality, and deep interdisciplinarity—each of which has the power to break down methodological silos, cultivate novel research sensibilities, and inspire researchers to question what is known about ethnographic process, representation, reflexivity, audience, and intervention within and beyond the academy. By blurring the boundaries between the past, present, and future; between absence and presence; between the possible and the impossible; and between fantasy and reality, In Search of Lost Futures pushes the boundaries of ethnographic engagement. It reveals how researchers on the cutting edge of the discipline are studying absence and grief and employing street performance, museum exhibit, anticipation, or simulated reality to research and intervene in the possible, the impossible, and the uncertain. Magdalena Kazubowski-Houston is Associate Professor of Theatre with graduate appointments in Theatre and Performance Studies and Social Anthropology at York University, Canada. Her book, Staging Strife (2010), was awarded the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry Outstanding Qualitative Book Award and the Canadian Association for Theatre Research Ann Saddlemyer Book Prize (2011). Her article, “quiet theatre: The Radical Politics of Silence,” was awarded the Canadian Association for Theatre Research (CATR) 2019 Richard Plant Prize for the best English-language article on a Canadian theatre or performance topic. She is a co-founding member of the Centre for Imaginative Ethnography (CIE), which received the American Anthropological Association General Anthropology Division’s 2019 New Directions Award in Public Anthropology. Mark Auslander, a sociocultural and historical anthropologist, works at the intersection of ritual practice, aesthetics, environmental transformation, kinship, and political consciousness in Africa and the African Diaspora. His curatorial work engages with art, race, environmental crisis, gender, and memory politics. He has directed museums of science and culture at Central Washington University and Michigan State University, and currently serves as director of special projects at the Natural History Museum. Foreword Acknowledgments Contents Notes on Contributors List of Figures 1 Introduction: In Search of Lost Futures Anthropological Forays into the Future The Three Approaches Imagining and Intervening in the Future References Part I Multimodality 2 Possibilities and Impossibilities in Acción This Performance Ethnography Emerges Through Acción Ayotzinapa 43 Collaborative Ethnography in Acción Demanding the Impossible: We Want Them Back Alive Messages to the Missing Acción as Public Memorial Acción as Political Intervention “Look Around You and You Will See”: Performances of Impossibility Interventions and Difference Making References 3 Put Your Body into It: Exploring Imagination Through Enskillment in Outdoor Women’s Camps Exploring BOW: Context and Method Imagining Uncertain Futures: Chemicals, Disaster, and the Zombie Apocalypse Remembering Childhood: Enskillment and Narrating the Past Experiencing the Now: Desirability and Feasibility Conclusion: Method of Imagination References 4 Staging Care: Dying, Death, and Possible Futures Background Politics of Care Aesthetics of Dying in Kashi Performances of the Possible Film Screening References 5 Impossible Ethnography: Tracking Colonial Encounters, Listening to Raised Voices, and Hearing Indigenous Sovereignty in the “New World” References Part II Deep Interdisciplinarity 6 Future-Making in Times of Urban Sustainability: Maintenance and Endurance as Progressive Alternatives in the Postindustrial Era The Time of Urban Sustainability Sustaining Economic Sustainability Sustaining Ecological Sustainability Conclusion: Sustainability/Maintenance/Endurance as Future-Making References 7 Knowing and Imagining with Sustainable Makers Technoscience in Spaces of Dirty Knowing Collective Imaginings References 8 Anticipating Crisis as Affective Future-Making in Iceland The Past: Unfolding the Crisis The Present: Anticipation as an Affective State The Future: Ethnography in-Between the Emergent and the Possible References 9 Simulating and Trusting in Automated Futures: Anthropology and the Wizard of Oz Wizard of Oz Testing as a Design Anthropology Research Site Experiments, Ethics, and Anthropology Anthropology, Testing, and Trust WOz Experimenting and Design Anthropology in Practice Conclusion References Part III Autoethnography 10 Intimating the Possible Collapse of the Future: Digging into Cuban Palimpsests Through Innovative Methodologies Housing Crisis in Cuba Palimpsests and the Blurring of Temporal Dimensions The Story of a Plumbing System Digging into the Underground Stories from Belowground The Beat of Collapse: Experimental Approaches to Ethnography Conclusion: Possible Collapses References 11 Absence, Magic, and Impossible Futures Absence Father Grief Magical Performance References 12 Projections and Possibilities: An Installation About HuMilk Now White Gold Purposeful Interruption Projections and Possibilities Doing Anthropology References 13 Exhibition Development as Restorative Future-Making: Community Co-Curation in the Struggle Against Sexual Violence The Growing Crisis: On not Being Believed Teal Ribbons on the MSU Campus Writing to a Tree Conserving the Teal Bows Developing the Exhibit: Regaining Trust Design Decisions: The Art of Listening Objects of Pain, Control, and Ambivalence Butterflies Are Good to Think: Alexandra Bourque’s Sculpture “How We Roar, Part 2”: Jordyn Fishman’s Painting Engaging with Younger Audiences Celebrating Advocacy and Intersectionality Concluding Thoughts: Two Sister Survivors References Index