Ethnography: A Workshop on Radical Attention
3-6 October, 2025
Anthropology: An Art of Attention
Structure
The workshop explains what ethnography is and what kinds of things it can be useful for. I will use the first two sessions to introduce ethnography as a research technique of anthropology. I will unpack what I like to call ‘a point of view about points of view’. This discussion will depend on unpacking some previously distributed reading material, that participants will have to come having read beforehand. The final session focuses on a small writing assignment where each participant will share their work with rest of the group.
This workshop conducted over four days (see plan below) aims at:
Day 1 – Practices of seeing, being, and a bit of speaking as the art of attention.
Keywords: seeing, feeling, narrating, listening, power, representation.
Day 2 – Tasting two ethnographic texts – one in narrative, one in poetry. Close-reading the texts, discussion, and applying their insights to our contexts.
Keywords: fieldwork, journey, intimacy, suffering, abandonment, loss, witnessing.
Day 3 – Constructing research questions and visiting one’s ongoing, or currently nascent research through the ethnographic lens. Bringing to the forefront, the elements of mutual dialogue, ethics, situational sensitivity and understanding in furthering the work of activists and practitioners.
Keywords: activism, change, intervention, politics, justice, research.
Day 4 – Writing workshop.
Day 1
Reading: Annie Ernaux. A Girl’s Story (2016, excerpt)
Morning: Lecture on ethnography and anthropology
Afternoon: Discussion on the following lines.
- What is attention?
- How does it help to negotiate?
- How does it help in our changemaking work?
- Why engage with ethnography?
- Anthropology, fiction, journalism, memoir, travelogue
Evening film screening: Aranyer Dinratri by Satyajit Ray (1970)
Day 2
Readings: Biehl João. Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013. Excerpt.
Renato Rosaldo. The Day of Shelly’s Death: The Poetry and Ethnography of Grief (Duke UP, 2014)
- Why write about others’ lives?
- What is narrative? How is it constructed?
- Seeing is believing?
- Limits of the method.
- Ethics/Politics of representation
- How do Others affect us?
- Suffering
- How to live with witnessing suffering?
Evening film screening: Ivan’s Childhood by Andrei Tarkovsky (1962).
Day 3
- Participants present their research questions/project
- Everyone comments on each presentation
- Feedback
- Note-taking practices
- Discussion of feasibility
- Practicalities of research
Afternoon
- Participants take off on an hour-long walk (unaided by gadgets- phone, smartwatch and so on) and write about it.
Day 4
- Participants submit write-ups (1500 words or less) by 6 am in the morning.
- Writing workshop for the rest of the day.
Facilitator Bio:
Atreyee Majumder is an anthropologist. She earned her doctoral degree from Yale University (2014). She has been an Andrew Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto (2016-18). Her doctoral work culminated in her first book Time, Space, and Capital in India: Longing and Belonging in an Urban-Industrial Hinterland (Routledge, 2018). Her research examines questions related to urbanism, print cultures, and religion. This empirical canvas allows her to engage in historically grounded theoretical inquiries – a kind of ear-to-the-ground philosophical practice – into the relationship between time and space, and more recently, inquiries of self and personhood. Her current research agenda is located at the intersection of anthropology, theology, and the philosophy of religion, specifically concerned with the devotional practice of Bhakti. Ethnographic research for this project is being conducted in the sacred city of Vrindavan and its surround in northern India. The current phase of this research is funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. She has published widely in academic and popular venues including the South Asian Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, Religions, Economic and Political Weekly, 3AM magazine, India Today, Article 14, Anthropology & Humanism, Philosophy in Review, Religions, and LSE Review of Books. She is currently Associate Professor of Social Sciences at the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru. She is a published poet. Her first book of poems, The Book of Blue, is now out from Red River (2024).
Participant Contribution
We hope that participants will contribute an amount of Rs. 8,000/- towards workshop expenses, inclusive of all on-site workshop costs: boarding, lodging, and all the materials used in the workshop. Travel of participants will have to be borne by the organisation/the participants.
Do not let money be an impediment to your application. Need based fee waivers are available. We have a limited number of scholarships so please apply for a fee waiver if you really need it. Do remember that there may be others who need it more than you. Fee waiver will be offered to people from marginalized groups and non-funded social, political or students movements.
Dates and Venue: 3-6 October 2025, Sambhaavnaa Institute, VPO Kandbari, Tehsil Palampur, District Kangra, PIN 176061, Himachal Pradesh.
How to reach: Please visit: Getting here
For any other info: WhatsApp or call : 889 422 7954 (between 10 am to 5 pm), and e-mail: [email protected]