Monsoon as method

Abstract

This paper is a reflective discussion of the research method developed by a small research team over a 5-year period as it intra-acted with the south Asian monsoon in three south/southeast Asian cities. It reflects on how the team’s practice was transformed from being research on or about the monsoon as a discrete unit of analysis, to research in the monsoon and with its agential materiality. The paper first outlines the theoretical resources from cultural geography, anthropology, feminist theory, posthuman theory, and science and technology studies that the project drew from. After this theoretical section, the paper then discusses the practical implications of the method and the two emergent strands of research (‘weather matters’ and ‘construction matters’) that were followed in Chennai, Dhaka, and Yangon. The final section of the paper reflects on the extension of the method into the formatting of a book and an online exhibition. The paper concludes by arguing that what the method offers to cultural, weather-based research in monsoonal and other climes, is a situated, non-formulaic method that recognizes the affordances of the Earth’s agency, of matter and of other-than-human lives for generating knowledge of and ways of being in changing weather-worlds.