Conference Agenda

In this session, we aim to explore the notion of “collapse” and the potential it holds for qualitative research. We start by sharing moments of “collapse” (in four vignettes) taken from our own research, and invite participants to discover how we identified, lived, materialized and conceptualized “collapse” in various ways. Such moments of “collapse” were (i) found in material objects from ethnographic fieldwork, (ii) built into research design to evoke ideas for creative problem-solving, (iii) explored as a technique to unravel multiple meanings, stories and relationalities, (iv) chosen as an (unsolvable) task by a research participant to explore his own capacity to create.

Vignette: Yimin Zhang

An environmental volunteer found an abandoned bird nest in a local orchard. There is a fleck of orange fibres woven into the nest. Where could this orange color come from? There are no orange grasses or trees around. The volunteer told me: “[The colour comes] from the carpets of the neighbors. Here is the tradition, the carpets are tapped outside to remove the dust. And then birds come to pick the wool. They often have favourite colours. Here is orange. In the park there is a tit always taking only blue and violet. They have favourite colours, those tits.”

For me, this is a compelling example of how nature actively incorporates human traces into its own processes, creating a moment of collapse between ‘natural’ and ‘man-made’ and challenging the traditional dichotomy between human and nature.

Vignette: Anastasia Badder

‘Imagine Cambridge runs out of water by the end of the year’. Following a creative workshop bringing together water industry and water activists, an industry representative reflected: ‘occasional failures’ in water systems are typically framed as technical problems, explained to ‘customers’ in those terms, and generally accepted as such. But that day, responses went beyond what he expected in ‘strength and…anger’. Relationships with water are ‘not simply about the pipes and pumps’, he realized; they are as much about ‘life-giving properties’ and ‘emotional…and spiritual connection’; indeed, perhaps he experienced such connections outside the office. The challenge for the water industry is therefore ‘how to reconcile those…connections with the prosaic business of supplying water.

Vignette: Gabi, Anastasia, Yimin, Gog, Nia, Arshima, Salman

Colleagues from four continents agreed to an experiment and task. They looked at photographs around the access and use of water (such as (a) pouring water from a plastic or glass bottle, and (b) taking it from an open (natural) source). They were invited to perform these acts, if they could, and to later associate freely and write about their relationships with water. The same images of and around the use of water evoked meanings and questions of astoundingly different nature: “Is it free or constrained?” (Y); “Is it inside or outside of me? (Go); “Handpump or tap water: Does it matter for consumption?” (G) “Can you appreciate it if you never lacked it?” (N); “Does drinking from a glass – as opposed to a plastic container – grant you higher status”? “Is feeling the pain of environmental destruction real or just a discourse”? Images can be powerful tools in research and as devises “collapsing” multiple realities. Making the lines of implicit connections with those different realities, perceptions, and perspectives visible, can give methodological strength and stimulate new forms of exchange.

Vignette: Madelaine Wood

An artist engages with the task of ‘translating’ a poem into a different semiotic mode. He attempts to represent a chosen poem as a visual image. He puts himself to the test and attempts to find ways to represent two different temporalities (and contradictory modes of being – absence and presence – a person waiting and a person seeing another one arriving) in ONE single image. Putting two images next to each other is not an option, as he considers this “a (too) cheap trick.” He tries other ways of getting closer to his vision by using AI and trying out different prompts. Dissatisfied with the result and his (apparent) inability to solve the puzzle of un-collapsing the un-collapsible, he considers having exhausted his means, artistic energy, and resources and moves on to another poem.

Together with participants, we will discuss the potential of ‘collapse’ as a method to ‘think and feel beyond’ dichotomies (e.g. the human/non-human, Barad 2007), disciplinary boundaries, and the (un-)predictability in research design (Jackson & Mazzei, 2024), to build sensitivity for new emerging relationalities, perspectives and creative energies. We will create a canvas to document our collective thought process and keep a record of its outcome.