Anthropology entails “multiple ontological senses of patchwork”—not only at field sites, but also across physical and virtual spaces, temporalities, and collaborators.
Shannon Mattern
13 April 2021
Published: 10 June 2021
Image is Antoni Jażwiński’s Tableau Muet (source).
When the Patchwork Ethnography Manifesto was published in June 2020, Shannon Mattern knew she would be teaching online in the fall and that her students had doubts and insecurities. She added the manifesto to her fall syllabus, and it resonated strongly with her students as they grappled with not only COVID-19, but also colonialism, patriarchy, and work-life balance. The pandemic became a moment to reflect on broader core values. The course was on anthropology and design, and Shannon made it “modular”—patchworked, we might say—to fit students’ interdisciplinary interests, geographic locations, and time zones, as well as their access and comfort levels. “Patchwork” often has an improvisational connotation, but not all students’ lives can accommodate improvisation. They have jobs to juggle, families to care for, commutes to schedule. Flexibility doesn’t always mean accessibility. And that’s why patchwork, in a pedagogical context, has to be thoughtfully designed.
Shannon Mattern is a Professor at the New School for Social Research. matterns[at]newschool.edu / @shannonmattern