The Department of Global Communications invites you to an open lecture by Susan Ossman

“When the field makes the anthropologist: some thoughts on field design and subject formation.”
This talk will explore technologies of the self as they relate to research using methods of participant observation. Ethnographers used to “go into” the field. Today, designs for fieldwork are more reflective and often creative. In my talk I will explore how the “field formations” shaped by contemporary designs for the field shape the researcher as a subject, and the relationship of this knowing subject to the embodied and biographical self using examples from my own research projects. The talk is based on my upcoming book on this subject with Bloomsbury press.

Susan Ossman is an anthropologist and an artist who has made her home in France, Morocco, the UK and the US. She is the author of books on globalization, migration, media and aesthetics. She is Professor of Anthropology and Global Studies at University of California, Riverside.

See the full event poster.