Uneventful ethnography and the unfolding fieldwork in search of digital nomads in rural Japan

Abstract

Uneventful ethnography is an attempt to enable fieldworkers to capture social and spatial intentions in seemingly empty fields. Events in anthropology have often been framed through liminality to explain rituals, acts and routines across walks of life, where social order is ultimately restored. A Deleuzian view through actualisation instead points towards a future-oriented outlook, where fieldworkers are concerned with the emergence of new possibilities. Drawing on 5 months of fieldwork across Japan, especially in rural places attempting to attract digital nomads, I present three vignettes examining how cultural imaginaries are negotiated when no events are immediately available during fieldwork. Observations turn towards faint and stifled wishes and desires embedded in spaces, narratives and actions, shaped by external forces and expectations. Uneventful ethnography becomes a methodological tool through which fieldworkers attend to not yet actualised events. Seemingly empty fields remain laden with possibilities not yet materialised, but which may eventually occur.