It is by now a truism to claim that science is always already a form of intervention. There is therefore, no need to rehearse that debate again, Nevertheless, intervention now haunts anthropology in at least three new ways.

1. Intervention as an object of study:
   We study the interventions of others ethnographically: how states, corporations, agencies, and NGO's for instance seek to change the world of others. Intervention in this sense is an observational fact. Is this a new fact and how do we approach it?
2. Intervention as activism:
   Intervention in this sense is a political goal, an ambition to work in the world in order to reshape it for the better. Is this a new goal and how do we approach it?
3. Intervention as method:
   We may also use intervention as a part of the ethnographic tool kit: intervening in the field to elicit different kinds of knowledge, intervening in analysis to provoke new kinds of perspective, intervening in representation to shape new forms of dissemination and generate new research questions. Is this a new kind of method and how do we approach it?

The seminar invites scholars of the research programme Contemporary Ethnography to explore these three forms of intervention in ethnographic research.

Time and place:

• Time: 13.-14. June 2013 
• Place: Kaløvig Kursuscenter

 Contact: Research Programme Director Nils Bubandt (bubandt@hum.au.dk)