Doing Interventions : Experiments and Collaborations in Contemporary Ethnography

In dieser Einleitung zur 83. Ausgabe der Kulturanthropologie Notizen stellen wir das Konzept der Intervention ins Zentrum und betonen wie Forscher:innen und ihre Felder immer aufeinander bezogen sind. Während wir grundsätzlich davon ausgehen, dass ethnographische Studien per se als interventionistisch verstanden werden können, diskutieren wir ‚doing interventions‘ als einen spezifischen, ethnographischen methodischen Ansatz und reflektieren insbesondere Experimente und Kollaborationen sowie deren epistemischen Effekte. In diesem Sinne verweisen Interventionen mit/in der Ethnographie auf ethnographisches Wissen, das einen Effekt auf das Feld hat, während die Praxis des Intervenierens zugleich auch die ethnographische Wissensproduktion verändern kann. Die Autor:innen dieser Ausgabe der Kulturanthropologie Notizen zeigen anhand einer Vielzahl von Beispielen, wie sich Interventionen mit und in der Ethnographie in der Praxis ausgestalten lassen und wie diese Modi miteinander verflochten sind. Die Fallstudien reichen von ethnografischer Forschung im globalen Lebensmittelsektor und in der Rohstoffindustrie über Feldforschung in und mit der Sozialpsychiatrie bis hin zu neuen Formen der Zusammenarbeit während der COVID-19-Pandemie. Nicht zuletzt wird die Anthropologie als Veränderungswissenschaft diskutiert. Was die Texte eint, ist die Überzeugung, dass Interventionen mit/in der Ethnographie das Potential haben Etabliertes und Selbstverständliches in Frage zu stellen, normative und dominante Wahrnehmungen der Wissensproduktion zu transformieren, Diskurse zu irritieren und gleichzeitig die Re-Imagination und Re-Konzeptualisierung der ethnographischen Praxis  zu fördern

Distributing Reflexivity through Co-laborative Ethnography

In ethnographic research and analysis, reflexivity is vital to achieving constant coordination between field and concept work. However, it has been conceptualized predominantly as an ethnographer’s individual mental capacity. In this article, we draw on ten years of experience in conducting research together with partners from social psychiatry and mental health care across different research projects. We unfold three modes of achieving reflexivity co-laboratively: contrasting and discussing disciplinary concepts in interdisciplinary working groups and feedback workshops; joint data interpretation and writing; and participating in political agenda setting. Engaging these modes reveals reflexivity as a distributed process able to strengthen the ethnographer’s interpretative authority, and also able to constantly push the conceptual boundaries of the participating disciplines and professions.Heinrich Böll Stiftung https://doi.org/10.13039/100009379Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001659Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001659Peer Reviewe

Interlaboratory comparison investigations (ICIs) and external quality assurance schemes (EQUASs) for flame retardant analysis in biological matrices: Results from the HBM4EU project

The European Human Biomonitoring Initiative (HBM4EU) is coordinating and advancing human biomonitoring (HBM). For this purpose, a network of laboratories delivering reliable analytical data on human exposure is fundamental. The analytical comparability and accuracy of laboratories analysing flame retardants (FRs) in serum and urine were investigated by a quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) scheme comprising interlaboratory comparison investigations (ICIs) and external quality assurance schemes (EQUASs). This paper presents the evaluation process and discusses the results of four ICI/EQUAS rounds performed from 2018 to 2020 for the determination of ten halogenated flame retardants (HFRs) represented by three congeners of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (BDE-47, BDE-153 and BDE-209), two isomers of hexabromocyclododecane (α-HBCD and γ-HBCD), two dechloranes (anti-DP and syn-DP), tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA), decabromodiphenylethane (DBDPE), and 2,4,6-tribromophenol (2,4,6-TBP) in serum, and four metabolites of organophosphorus flame retardants (OPFRs) in urine, at two concentration levels. The number of satisfactory results reported by laboratories increased during the four rounds. In the case of HFRs, the scope of the participating laboratories varied substantially (from two to ten) and in most cases did not cover the entire target spectrum of chemicals. The highest participation rate was reached for BDE-47 and BDE-153. The majority of participants achieved more than 70% satisfactory results for these two compounds over all rounds. For other HFRs, the percentage of successful laboratories varied from 44 to 100%. The evaluation of TBBPA, DBDPE, and 2,4,6-TBP was not possible because the number of participating laboratories was too small. Only seven laboratories participated in the ICI/EQUAS scheme for OPFR metabolites and five of them were successful for at least two biomarkers. Nevertheless, the evaluation of laboratory performance using Z-scores in the first three rounds required an alternative approach compared to HFRs because of the small number of participants and the high variability of experts' results. The obtained results within the ICI/EQUAS programme showed a significant core network of comparable European laboratories for HBM of BDE-47, BDE-153, BDE-209, α-HBCD, γ-HBCD, anti-DP, and syn-DP. On the other hand, the data revealed a critically low analytical capacity in Europe for HBM of TBBPA, DBDPE, and 2,4,6-TBP as well as for the OPFR biomarkers.We gratefully acknowledge funding by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the grant agreement No. 733032.S

Interlaboratory comparison investigations (ICIs) and external quality assurance schemes (EQUASs) for flame retardant analysis in biological matrices: Results from the HBM4EU project

The European Human Biomonitoring Initiative (HBM4EU) is coordinating and advancing human biomonitoring (HBM). For this purpose, a network of laboratories delivering reliable analytical data on human exposure is fundamental. The analytical comparability and accuracy of laboratories analysing flame retardants (FRs) in serum and urine were investigated by a quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) scheme comprising interlaboratory comparison investigations (ICIs) and external quality assurance schemes (EQUASs). This paper presents the evaluation process and discusses the results of four ICI/EQUAS rounds performed from 2018 to 2020 for the determination of ten halogenated flame retardants (HFRs) represented by three congeners of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (BDE-47, BDE-153 and BDE-209), two isomers of hexabromocyclododecane (α-HBCD and γ-HBCD), two dechloranes (anti-DP and syn-DP), tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA), decabromodiphenylethane (DBDPE), and 2,4,6-tribromophenol (2,4,6-TBP) in serum, and four metabolites of organophosphorus flame retardants (OPFRs) in urine, at two concentration levels. The number of satisfactory results reported by laboratories increased during the four rounds. In the case of HFRs, the scope of the participating laboratories varied substantially (from two to ten) and in most cases did not cover the entire target spectrum of chemicals. The highest participation rate was reached for BDE-47 and BDE-153. The majority of participants achieved more than 70% satisfactory results for these two compounds over all rounds. For other HFRs, the percentage of successful laboratories varied from 44 to 100%. The evaluation of TBBPA, DBDPE, and 2,4,6-TBP was not possible because the number of participating laboratories was too small. Only seven laboratories participated in the ICI/EQUAS scheme for OPFR metabolites and five of them were successful for at least two biomarkers. Nevertheless, the evaluation of laboratory performance using Z-scores in the first three rounds required an alternative approach compared to HFRs because of the small number of participants and the high variability of experts' results. The obtained results within the ICI/EQUAS programme showed a significant core network of comparable European laboratories for HBM of BDE-47, BDE-153, BDE-209, α-HBCD, γ-HBCD, anti-DP, and syn-DP. On the other hand, the data revealed a critically low analytical capacity in Europe for HBM of TBBPA, DBDPE, and 2,4,6-TBP as well as for the OPFR biomarkers.We gratefully acknowledge funding by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the grant agreement No. 733032.S

Niching in cities under pressure. Tracing the reconfiguration of community psychiatric care and the housing market in Berlin

Community psychiatry services in Berlin are currently facing serious challenges providing care to their clients due to a strained housing market and a lack of housing for people with low income or on welfare. Rather than using the word precarity to describe the effect of cuts in welfare state benefits and investments, we grasp precarity ethnographically as a situated, processual condition that emerges in urban assemblages. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in community psychiatry and with people with a psychiatric diagnosis in Berlin, we elaborate on the entanglement of housing market development, gentrification processes and mental health care provision. Community psychiatry professionals especially face challenges securing decent housing for their clients in the inner-city; as a result they pressure them to keep disturbances to a minimum and keep inconspicuous clients in the mental health care system. We argue that precarity is contingently produced by the coming-together of urban developments and community psychiatry principles. As such, precarity itself is generative of shifts in mental health care practices, produces visible tensions within community psychiatry and unfolds in the everyday struggles of mental health care clients, resulting in ambiguous outcomes. To provide a relational analysis of precarity as lived experience and a condition of urban life, we introduce the notion of niching as a middle-range concept connecting conditions of precarity with what people make of it. This is complemented by an analysis of the socio-material practices that produce urbanism.Peer Reviewe

PH The format 'participation' as work on the relationship between law and politics

Dieser Beitrag diskutiert, wie in Beteiligungsverfahren Anliegen von Interessensvertretungen von Menschen mit Behinderung politisch bearbeitbar gemacht werden. Mit dem Konzept der ›reflexiven Juridifizierung‹ wird die Arbeit der Interessenvertretungen am Verhältnis von Recht und Politik analysiert.This paper explores how political concerns expressed by self-advocates of disabled people are formatted in participatory procedures and made ›doable‹ for policy processes. The specific work done by self-advocates to integrate politics and law in specific ways is conceptualized as ›reflexive juridification‹

Das Format "Beteiligung" als Arbeit am Verhältnis von Recht und Politik

Dieser Beitrag diskutiert, wie in Beteiligungsverfahren Anliegen von Interessensvertretungen von Menschen mit Behinderung politisch bearbeitbar gemacht werden. Mit dem Konzept der "reflexiven Juridifizierung" wird die Arbeit der Interessenvertretungen am Verhältnis von Recht und Politik analysiert.This paper explores how political concerns expressed by self-advocates of disabled people are formatted in participatory procedures and made "doable" for policy processes. The specific work done by self-advocates to integrate politics and law in specific ways is conceptualized as "reflexive juridification"

PH The format 'participation' as work on the relationship between law and politics

Dieser Beitrag diskutiert, wie in Beteiligungsverfahren Anliegen von Interessensvertretungen von Menschen mit Behinderung politisch bearbeitbar gemacht werden. Mit dem Konzept der ›reflexiven Juridifizierung‹ wird die Arbeit der Interessenvertretungen am Verhältnis von Recht und Politik analysiert.This paper explores how political concerns expressed by self-advocates of disabled people are formatted in participatory procedures and made ›doable‹ for policy processes. The specific work done by self-advocates to integrate politics and law in specific ways is conceptualized as ›reflexive juridification‹

„Wenn man den Boden unter den Füßen nicht mehr spürt“

In diesem Text gehe ich der Frage nach, welche Rolle Körperlichkeit im Erleben psychischer Erkrankung spielt und wie Körper an der (Wieder-)Herstellung psychischer In/Stabilität partizipieren. Damit ziele ich darauf ab, das komplexe Ineinandergreifen von Körper und Psyche im praktischen Vollzug sichtbar zu machen. Das Interesse an der körperlichen Dimension im Erleben und Erarbeiten psychischer Stabilität geht zurück auf meine Feldforschung im psychiatrischen Versorgungssystem in Berlin, in deren Rahmen ich auch intensiven Kontakt zu Betroffenen während und nach ihrer stationären Behandlung im Krankenhaus hielt. Die Beschreibungen und Erklärungen der Betroffenen, die in diesem Text im Zentrum stehen, verdeutlichen, dass in ihren Alltagen die in der Moderne entstandene Trennung zwischen Körper und Geist, Soma und Psyche obsolet ist, beides ist in ihrem Erleben untrennbar verbunden. Die Betroffenen müssen sich mit ihren Körpern auseinandersetzen: Sie haben keine unproblematischen oder gar »abwesenden Körper«, wie Drew Leder (1990) den im Alltag als selbstverständlich vorausgesetzten Körper bezeichnet