The ethnography network has a distinctive methodological focus. Researchers using ethnographic methods thus always have the option of presenting in networks with a topical focus unless they want to concentrate their presentation on methodological questions. Over the last years, we have seen an increasing number of ethnographic presentations across all networks, which emphasizes the benefits of ethnography as a research strategy. As the EERA network with ethnography at the core, it is a trend which we are delighted to see. At the same time, this trend also reflected in a declining number of presentations in NW19 at the last few ECERs. We aim to reverse this trend in the future by enabling more engagement for network members, as well as offering more possibilities to communicate and discuss ethnographic perspectives.
ECER 2022 saw lively discussions and a good share of rich and informative presentations. There have been three paper sessions and one symposium at the on-site conference in Yerewan. Two sessions have been withdrawn, leading to a total number of 10 presentations this year. One interesting line of discussion across sessions and the symposium focused on questions of adequate descriptions when writing ethnographic texts like field notes, protocols and also articles and presentations – how descriptions can evoke an atmosphere and present a well-rounded story about the social realities that ethnographers try to grasp, how they reflect upon their position as researchers in the field, the structures of the field, how alternative forms of descriptions can be used to transfer movement and openness, and how writing together establishes a common repertoire of thinking. The symposium explored questions around field relations, how they can be built and conceptualized with different field actors and related to different research interests and theoretical frameworks.