A Sweaty Praxis

Abstract

This is a manifesto. Considering the contemporary geopolitical sphere, it offers a provocation based on the concept of commoning ethnography, asking that we, as anthropologists, get sweaty (thank you Sara Ahmed (2014) for this push) – that we let go of our hold on ethnography – the concept and the practice - and by doing so open new imaginations and machinations of praxis and practice. Some of the statements are deliberately provocative. They aim for debate, perhaps dismissal; potentially debacle. It is a start of other thinking, but more importantly, doing. What I aim for is a push for the commons that puts anthropologists, as people whose lives and works are enmeshed in others, in the centre of the uncomfortable world, sweating with the permeability of an ethnography that changes shape in ways yet unknown.