Ethnographies of slow violence: Epistemological alliances in fieldwork and narrating ruins

Vorbrugg, Alexander (2019). Ethnographies of slow violence: Epistemological alliances in fieldwork and narrating ruins. Environment and Planning. C, Politics and space, 40(2), pp. 447-462. Sage 10.1177/2399654419881660

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This article explores the nexus of slow violence as a concept, research focus, and problem on theone hand, and the practices and politics of ethnographic fieldwork and writing on the other.I argue that paying more explicit attention to methodological challenges in conductingethnog-raphies of slow violenceis both necessary and worthwhile. Ethnographies can animate thebroader debates on slow violence, infuse them with new concepts and political urgencies, andrelate them to new sites and problems. Conversely, the problem of slow violence can advanceethnographic debates and practices, even beyond ethnographiesofslow violence in a narrowersense. I highlight two aspects. First, I explore epistemological alliances between researchersand research participants which confront forms of violence that at first remain partlyelusive to both sides. Second, I argue for multi-temporal ethnographies which work throughdrawn-out and complex timescapes of violence and loss by tracing cross-temporal connections.Notions of fieldwork are still mainly defined in spatial terms, and so the problem of slowviolence is an important reminder to pay more attention to temporal dimensions. I build thisargument on ethnographic research conducted in rural Russia, and thus also show how theconcept of slow violence helps to make sense of and to make visible those forms of lossand dispossession that often remain elusive in academic and public representations of theRussian countryside.

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