Learning from the Other ‘Other’– Doing Mobile Ethnography Across Asia, Africa, and Beyond

Panel Convenor(s)

• MT

  Min Tang

  Tongji University, China
• YC

  Ying Cheng

  Peking University, China

Panel Chair(s)

• MT

  Min Tang

  Tongji University, China

Presenter(s)

• MT

  Min Tang

  Tongji University, China
• SB

  Sangeeta Banerji

  NYU Shanghai, China
• JC

  Jáfia Câmara

  Centre for Lebanese Studies and the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
• KJ

  Kawthar Jeewa

  Nelson Mandela University, Mauritius

How does one conduct ethnography in/across the rapidly shifting South urban spaces? How can the mobile youth within the Southern urbanisation be seen/heard? How can one learn from the Southern ‘other’ from a comparative perspective? What are the practices and mediums of South-South collaboration from below? This panel and roundtable titled “Learning from the Other ‘Other’– Doing Mobile Ethnography across Asia, Africa, and Beyond” aim to collectively explore Southern young scholar’s challenges, experiences, and methodological reflections in doing field-based research within other Southern urban contexts beyond their home country. The panel considers mobile research with youth and marginal communities as open-ended collaboration in / beyond the field—not only between the interlocutor(s) and the researcher(s) but also among Southern scholars. Learning from the “Other ‘Other’” indicates mutual references within the Souths, rather than solely relying on ‘the West’ as the source of references or theories. It also means collaborative research, teaching modalities, art exhibitions, and other forms of knowledge production and transmission. In coming together, they may strengthen networks amongst the different intellectual traditions of the Asian and African continents.

The panel is also an extension of an originally USF funded initiative, “Youth on the Move: performing urban space in the Global South”. YOTM includes a set of research and actions that investigate how young people’s moving and waiting practices indicate their space-making, time-making, and meaning-making performance across radically changing urban spaces in Africa and Asia. After its initial phase (2023-2024), and emerging in the 2nd phase (2024-2025), it has moved from Lagos (Nigeria)  to Shanghai (Asia) and Surabaya (Indonesia), and became a rising initiative to create an Asia-Africa network with the goal of producing grounded knowledge. The Dakar conference will offer a valuable opportunity for the YOTM to move back to Africa and think of the next phase of its evolution.

Presentations:

• 09:00 - 10:45 GMT

  Popular cartography: Rethinking Mapping as Collaborative Knowledge production strategies
  

  Presenter: Min Tang – Tongji University
• 09:00 - 10:45 GMT

  The Happiest people in China: Lived realities of the landless farmer in Xiaogang, Guangzhou
  

  Presenter: Sangeeta Banerji – NYU Shanghai
• 09:00 - 10:45 GMT

  Indigenous people in contexts of migration, including refugees, and encounters with urban territories in Brazil
  

  Presenter: Jáfia Naftali Câmara – Centre for Lebanese Studies and the University of Cambridge
• 09:00 - 10:45 GMT

  The Silent Contributions of an African-Asian Population within the Creole Architecture of Mauritius
  

  Presenter: Kawthar Jeewa – Nelson Mandela University