I am Santiago Orrego, an ethnographer working in anthropology, STS, and urban studies. My research centers on experimental ethnography, seen as both a method and a creative practice. I examine urban infrastructures, more-than-human interactions, and the small, frequently disregarded elements that shape everyday environments and encounters.
Instead of focusing on complete accounts, I pay attention to fragments. Fragments include residues, traces, and delicate details that show how life is interconnected across human and nonhuman worlds. Studying fragments allows ethnography to emphasize processes often overlooked by traditional research. My approach is both curatorial and multimodal. I combine fieldnotes, illustrations, photographs, and small taxonomies. These elements are assembled to create knowledge that is rigorous yet imaginative. In this way, experimental ethnography expands what counts as evidence and how it can be shared.
My academic background includes training in journalism, sociology, and anthropology. This path grounds my work in empirical research while fostering public communication and creative experimentation. I believe ethnography should move across publics, integrating analysis with visual and sensory forms. I collaborate through writing, drawing, and digital projects. Information visualization and curated fragments become essential tools for thinking. Visual and sensorial archives provide new ways to engage with ecological fragility and more-than-human relationships.
My current projects contribute to debates in experimental ethnography, inventive methods, and urban multispecies research. Through collaborative formats, I aim to expand ethnography to include care, imagination, and broader participation. This page presents my background, my current interests, and my ongoing efforts to develop creative ways of making ethnographic knowledge public. It offers an introduction to the themes, methods, and practices that guide my research.