Time and the Field

In recent years, ethnographic fieldwork has been subjected to analytical scrutiny in anthropology. Ethnography remains anchored in tropes of spatiality with the association between field and fieldworker characterized by distances in space. With updates on the discussion of contemporary requirements to ethnographic research practice, Time and the Field rethinks the notion of the field in terms of time rather than space. Such an approach not only implies a particular attention to the methodology of studying local (social and ontological) imaginaries of time, but furthermore destabilitizes the relationship between fieldworker and fieldsite, allowing it to emerge as a dynamic and ever-shifting constellation.

Steffen Dalsgaard is Associate Professor at the IT University of Copenhagen. He is currently deputy chair of the Young Academy of Denmark. Among his recent publications are articles in HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, Social Anthropology, Environment and Society, and Social Analysis.

Morten Nielsen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Aarhus University and coordinator of the interdisciplinary research network Urban Orders (URO). Recent publications include articles in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, Social Analysis, and Social Anthropology.