The contingencies of enchantment

Teaching ethnographic methods at the university of Toulouse

Abstract

Since 2016, the Anthropology department at the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès has been running an annual “collective fieldwork” for its graduate students. The paper describes this educational device aimed at teaching ethnographic methods. The authors consider the multiple biases that may skew the results of this process and argue that these biases can be turned into training tools. The article emphasizes that, in the course of the experiment, the students’ reflexive attention upon their methodological postures gradually turns into consideration for the richness of the ethnographic data they are producing. The authors analyze the daily debriefing sessions that constrain the students to adopt a steady pace of immersion into their fieldwork and a detachment from the “raw” ethnographic data. A tension arises that may evolve into a crisis that the authors deconstruct to demonstrate that the problems encountered in this short, collective fieldwork are not far removed from the issues raised by larger-scale ethnographic endeavors.