Embodiment work in Ethnographic Collaborations: Composition, Movement, and Pausing within the Multiple Sclerosis Society in Russia

This article – grounded in ethnographic fieldwork within the organization of chronic patients with multiple sclerosis in Russia – addresses the question of how to craft ethnographic collaborations with care. We propose to attend to the notion of collaboration ‘from a body’, or, rather, from bodies-in-movement. As movement requires energy, the crafting and maintenance of our ethnographic collaborations evokes care for composition of multiple we. Through the three moments which signified turning points for our ethnographic fieldwork and our relations with partners in the field we articulate three instances of embodiment work in ethnographic collaborations. We formulate them as composition, moving with and being moved by, and pausing - and specify how movement matters for them. A contribution in the methodographic Special Issue of Science & Technology Studies 'Ethnographic data generation in Science & Technology collaboration' - edited by Julie Mewes and Ingmar Lippert