Examining Loss: Postcritical Ethnography and the Pursuit of What Could Be Otherwise

Abstract

In this article, we argue that loss often precedes critique in postcritical ethnographic work. We position this argument in relation to the moral and the political commitments that imbue postcritical ethnography, noting how a postcritical perspective invites researchers to theorize and imagine what could be otherwise. We ground our discussion in a 4-year ethnography we carried out with Burundians with refugee status living in southern Appalachia in the United States. As we retrace some of the steps, silences, and tensions we embodied in this postcritical ethnographic work, we work to examine the place of loss, grief, and critique in the pursuit of what could have been otherwise and was not.