About
The Collaborative & Experimental Ethnography Lab (CE2 Lab) was established in 2019 at the University of British Columbia on the Okanagan Campus by Dr. Fiona P. McDonald and Dr. Susan E. Frohlick. The research team of the CE2 Lab respectfully acknowledge that their work takes place on the unceded and ancestral territory of the Syilx people.
OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH PROGRAM
In a globalized world, understanding social and environmental connections through the research framework and process of ethnography is needed. Ethnography is a systematic study of peoples and of cultures that allows researchers to explore cultural phenomena from an embedded environmental perspective. This methodological approach is at the core of the integrated Climate Justice + Social Change and Mobility + Social Change research program led by Drs. McDonald and Frohlick. There are four central research projects in the CE2 Lab under this unified and applied research program around Climate Justice and Mobility & Social Change. Two projects are led by Dr. McDonald: (1) Resilient Indigenous Housing, and (2) Sensory Storytelling; and two projects are led by Dr. Frohlick: (3) Social Change and Tourism in the Okanagan and (4) Sound Travel. These four projects have the potential to change ethnographic practices linked to environmental research. The long-term goal of this research program is to advance experimental ethnographic methods grounded in collaborative approaches with, and through the development of, digital tools that address real-time, place-based issues by incorporating sensory knowledges.
Core REsearch questions
The larger framework of the research program in the CE2 Lab is focused on: (1) foregrounding issue-driven research questions; (2) embracing sensory ethnography as a methodological basis; and (3) a commitment to producing an Open Access, multimodal knowledge dissemination program comprised of exhibitions, web-based publishing, digital archives, and community reports. From this, each project conducted within the lab aims to answer:
How do collaborative research approaches inform ethnographic methods to bring about cultural insights derived from sensory knowledge; and how can new knowledge be articulated through innovation in knowledge transfer to new publics?
By respecting the need for empirical work, the projects situated in the CE2 Lab are committed to applied outcomes that benefit society more broadly, starting here in Canada.
Funding for the lab infrastructure provided by:
