Collaborative ethnographies: Reading space to build an affective inventory

Abstract

Collaboration in qualitative research is increasingly encouraged and rewarded in many national and globalfunding schemes. Collaboration by scholars in (radically) different disciplines using different methods is be-coming common, however less attention is given to collaboration using shared approaches across closely-relateddisciplines. This paper considers the ethnographic insights of four researchers from different (but related) dis-ciplinary backgrounds who conducted collaborativefieldwork in one site—West Coast Park (WCP) inSingapore—over two periods offieldwork. We conducted an experimental collaboration to study emotions,affect and mundane space through sharing and comparing our interpretations of everyday life in WCP. We ask,how do researchers capture or speak to the affective properties circulated during collaboration? Second, howshould researchers approach the affective properties of mundane activities in space? Our paper develops a four-fold‘affective inventory’consisting of: a) multiple-attunements to the (un)familiar; b) attentiveness to affectiveaffordances and their governing effects; c) attentiveness to involuntary affective charges, and; d) awareness ofhow our diverse affective biographies affect the (im)perceptibility of affect. We propose that such an inventoryfunctions as a valuable guidepost in navigating collaborative ethnographies, especially when exploring emotionsand affect.