Get a PDF copy of this course →
Course Description
This course approaches method as a practice of care. It begins from the premise that ethnography’s ethical power lies in its capacity to stay with failure—to remain attentive when things break, collapse, or go wrong. Drawing on feminist theory, Science and Technology Studies (STS), and affective ethnography, students explore care, maintenance, and fragility as epistemic conditions.
Rather than treating error as a methodological flaw, the course invites students to cultivate attentiveness to what resists completion. Through reading, discussion, and experimental practice, participants develop methodological dispositions grounded in vulnerability, responsibility, and repair. Care here is not a sentiment but an infrastructure—a way of attending to the fragility of relations, materials, and forms of knowledge.
The semester culminates in The Cabinet of Failed Methods, a curated exhibition and reflective portfolio that transforms ethnographic breakdowns into sites of ethical and methodological invention.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
- Theorize method as a relational and ethical practice of care.
- Analyze how breakdown, error, and maintenance shape ethnographic knowledge.
- Design and conduct experimental ethnographic exercises attentive to fragility and repair.
- Reflect critically on positionality, responsibility, and vulnerability in research.
- Curate and present failed or incomplete ethnographic materials as methodological insights.
Guiding Questions
- What does it mean to “care” methodologically?
- How can ethnography remain attentive when things go wrong?
- What ethical and epistemic possibilities emerge from breakdown and repair?
- How can curatorial and experimental practices transform failure into invention?
Course Structure
| Component | Hours | Description |
| Seminar Sessions | 28 | Theoretical discussions on care, ethics, and methodological invention. |
| Studio Practicum | 28 | Guided experiments on repair, attention, and failure in practice. |
| Independent Reading & Project Work | 100 | Reading, reflection, and development of the Cabinet project. |
| Exhibition & Reflection | 24 | Preparation of the Cabinet of Failed Methods and final analytical essay. |
| Total | 180 Hours | 6 ECTS credits |
Assessment
All assignments emerge from the ongoing dialogue between theory, ethics, and experimental practice. Each component contributes to a cumulative process of reflection and invention culminating in the collective exhibition The Cabinet of Failed Methods. Assessments emphasize care, reflexivity, and methodological experimentation—students are expected to transform moments of breakdown into analytical and curatorial insight.
| Component | Description | Connection to weekly practice | Weight |
| Failure Journal (6–8 entries) | A series of 350–500-word reflections on moments of breakdown, discomfort, or uncertainty encountered in field or lab practice. Each entry must link one reading to an experiential vignette. | Derived from Field Practicum Weeks 1–6. These fragments form the analytical corpus of the Cabinet of Urban Specimens. | 25% |
| Ethical Repair Exercise | A short multimodal piece (text, audio, image, or installation) that reworks one “failure” into a gesture of care; includes a 600-word commentary. | Builds on Weeks 3–5 (Infrastructures of Relation, Atmospheric Diagramming, Cartographic Intervention). | 25% |
| Final Portfolio and Reflection | Curated portfolio of 3–4 “failed methods” (texts, fragments, or artifacts) + a 1,200-word essay titled “What Failure Taught Me About Method.” | Synthesizes all course outputs and contributes to the collective exhibition. | 30% |
| Participation | Active and informed engagement in seminar discussions, peer critique, and collaborative curation. | Continuous across all weeks; evaluated qualitatively. | 20% |
How to Work with the Assessments
- Failure Journal: Functions as an analytical lab notebook. Each practicum produces fragments that may evolve into one entry. Bring drafts for peer commentary (Weeks 4 and 6); together, they form the conceptual base for the Cabinet of Failed Methods.
- Ethical Repair Exercise: Developed across Weeks 2–5, linking failure, maintenance, and ethics. Rework one documented failure into a multimodal gesture of care. Drafts are reviewed in Week 5; the final piece includes a short commentary connecting form, attention, and response-ability.
- Final Portfolio: In Week 8, curate three to four selected artifacts into a coherent portfolio of failed methods. Pair each with a concise label and theoretical note, plus a 1,200-word essay What Failure Taught Me About Methodfor the Cabinet exhibition.
Weekly Schedule
Each week combines a Seminar (2 hrs) and a Studio Practicum (2 hrs).
Week 1 – Method as Care
Opening note
Before beginning our first discussion and field exercise, we will dedicate part of the session to reviewing the course program together. We will go through its structure, aims, and expectations in detail—clarifying how the seminar, field labs, and assignments connect as well as the process for the final collective exhibition.
Students are expected to have already read the entire syllabus before class and to bring any questions, suggestions, or uncertainties for discussion. The goal is to treat the syllabus as a shared ethnographic artifact —a document we will revisit, modify if needed, and collectively inhabit throughout the semester.
Key Ideas:
Situated ethics · Attention · Vulnerability · Repair
Guiding Questions:
- How does care reconfigure what counts as method?
- What does it mean to attend to breakdown as knowledge?
Readings
- Tronto, Joan. 1993. Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. New York: Routledge. (Intro + Ch. 1)
- Puig de la Bellacasa, María. 2017. Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More than Human Worlds.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Introduction)
- Mol, Annemarie. 2008. The Logic of Care: Health and the Problem of Patient Choice. London: Routledge. (Ch. 1 “Introduction: Good Care”)
Seminar (2 hrs)
- Introducing “care” as an epistemic disposition; discussion of the difference between control and maintenance in ethnographic practice.
Studio Practicum (1 hr)
- Mapping Care — diagram the relations of care in your fieldwork or daily life
- 300-word reflection: “Where does care fail?”
Week 2 – Failure as Method
Key Ideas:
Breakdown · Uncertainty · Negative capability · Refusal
Guiding Questions:
- How can failure become a methodological resource?
- What does staying with the broken teach us?
Readings
- Haraway, Donna J. 2016. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. (Intro)
- Halberstam, Jack. 2011. The Queer Art of Failure. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. (Intro & Ch. 2)
- Stewart, Kathleen. 2007. Ordinary Affects. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. (Selections)
Seminar (2 hrs)
- Reading discussion on the politics and poetics of failure.
Studio Practicum (2 hrs)
- Documenting Breakdown — rework one methodological failure into a 1-page multimodal vignette (text + visual).
Week 3 – Maintenance and Infrastructures of Care
Key Ideas:
Maintenance · Invisible labor · Fragility
Guiding Questions:
- What forms of maintenance sustain ethnographic and social life?
- How do repair and upkeep generate knowledge?
Readings
- Star, Susan Leigh. 1999. “The Ethnography of Infrastructure.” American Behavioral Scientist 43 (3): 377–391.
- Jackson, Steven J. 2014. “Rethinking Repair.” In Media Technologies, MIT Press.
- Denis, Jérôme, and David Pontille. 2015. “Material Ordering and the Care of Things.” Science, Technology & Human Values 40 (3): 338–367.
Seminar (2 hrs)
- Lecture + debate on infrastructures of care and maintenance.
Studio Practicum (2 hrs)
- Repair Log — design a maintenance protocol (textual, visual, or performative).
Week 4 – Ethics Beyond Representation
Key Ideas:
Relational ethics · Response-ability · Accountability
Guiding Questions:
- What does it mean to “respond” ethnographically?
- How can we practice responsibility without mastery?
Readings
- Haraway, Donna J. 1988. “Situated Knowledges.” Feminist Studies 14 (3): 575–599.
- Murphy, Michelle. 2017. The Economization of Life. (Epilogue “Unsettling Care”)
- Myers, Natasha. 2017. “Becoming Sensor.” Cultural Anthropology 32 (4): 597–635.
Seminar (2 hrs)
- Ethics of situated response; field examples of apology, refusal, and repair.
Studio Practicum (2 hrs)
- Ethnographic Apology — create a multimodal apology to something misrepresented or neglected.
Week 5 – Affective and Fragile Knowledge
Key Ideas:
Emotion · Precarity · Slowness · Attunement
Guiding Questions:
How do affect and emotion shape method?
Can hesitation be epistemic?
Readings
- Berlant, Lauren. 2011. Cruel Optimism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. (Intro).
- Stewart, Kathleen, and Lauren Berlant. 2019. The Hundreds. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. (Selections)
- Neimanis, Astrida. 2017. Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology. London: Bloomsbury Academic. (Ch. 2 “Hydrological Relations”)
Seminar (2 hrs)
- Discussion on affective infrastructures and slow method.
Studio Practicum (2 hrs)
- Slow Description — iterative writing exercise (five drafts, each slower and shorter).
Week 6 – Curating Failure
Key Ideas:
Curation · Ethics of display · Fragile archives
Guiding Questions:
- How can we curate breakdown without romanticizing it?
- What does it mean to exhibit the unfinished?
Readings
- Schneider, Arnd, and Christopher Wright, eds. 2010. Between Art and Anthropology: Contemporary Ethnographic Practice. Oxford: Berg. (Ch. on Exhibition).
- Marcus, George E. 2013. “Experimental Forms for the Expression of Norms.” Hau 3 (2): 197–217.
- Myers, Natasha. 2020. “Curating the Planthroposcene.” Environmental Humanities 12 (1): 1–22.
Seminar (2 hrs)
- Discussion on the ethics and politics of exhibiting incomplete work.
Studio Practicum (2 hrs)
- Designing Failure — draft one exhibition label (≤50 words) for a failed fragment + 250-word reflection.
Week 7 – Assemblage and Reflection
Key Ideas:
Composition · Collective vulnerability · Pedagogies of failure
Guiding Questions:
- How can collective reflection turn failure into learning?
- What does collaboration look like when no one is in control?
Readings
- Fortun, Kim. 2012. “Ethnography in Late Industrialism.” Cultural Anthropology 27 (3): 446–464.
- Lury, Celia. 2021. Problem Spaces: How and Why STS Thinks with Fragments. Cambridge: Polity Press. (Selections)
- Yusoff, Kathryn. 2018. A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Preface)
Seminar (2 hrs)
- Peer review and mapping recurrent “failures” as shared methods.
Studio Practicum (2 hrs)
- Cabinet Planning — finalize selection of artifacts, write curatorial statements and labels.
Week 8 – The Cabinet of Failed Methods
Key Ideas:
Exhibition as method · Ethics of care · Methodological invention
Guiding Questions:
- What happens when failure is made public?
- How can curating brokenness become an act of care?
Readings
- Puig de la Bellacasa, María. 2017. Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More than Human Worlds.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Ch. 5 “Making Time for Soil”)
- Jasanoff, Sheila, ed. 2004. States of Knowledge: The Co-Production of Science and Social Order. London: Routledge. (Selections)
Seminar (2 hrs)
- Final reflection on method, ethics, and care.
Studio Practicum (2 hrs)
- Cabinet Assembly and Reflection — mount collective exhibition and submit final portfolio + essay.
Final Output: The Archive of Failed Methods
Description
This course concludes with The Archive of Failed Methods, a collective reflection on experimentation, breakdown, and methodological vulnerability.
Each student contributes 2–3 entries—abandoned projects, unrealized ideas, or reflective essays—each labeled and contextualized with a 1,000-word piece On Methodological Failure.
Purpose
The Archive reframes failure as invention. It documents the hidden life of research—the detours, refusals, and hesitations that sustain ethnographic creativity.
Public Presentation
Curated as an annotated exhibition or open digital repository, the Archive transforms methodological collapse into collective learning.