The Ethnography Laboratory of the Department of Social Anthropology and History of the University of the Aegean was founded in 2000 (Official Government Gazette, 177/2-8-2000) and has been operating since, supporting ethnographic research, as well as the wider elaboration of ethnographic methodology and qualitative research methods in the University of the Aegean. The Department of Social Anthropology and History of the University of the Aegean has been for decades one of the most important institutions of ethnographic research in Greece. The Ethnography Laboratory supports funded and non-funded research, both at the doctoral and postdoctoral levels. The Laboratory has cooperated with many research institutes, such as: the National Center for Social Research, the National Documentation Center, the “Laboratory for Migration” of the Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology of the University of Thessaly, the “Laboratory of Social and Cultural Digital Documentation” of the Department of Sociology of the University of the Aegean, the “Institute for Studies on Migration and Ethnicity” of the University of Amsterdam.

Ethnographic Workshops

In recent years, the Ethnography Laboratory has organized three ethnographic methodology and research workshops, three thematic cycles of practical activities, aiming at familiarizing undergraduate students with anthropological field research and participant observation, in the city of Mytilene and on the island of Lesvos. The themes of the three cycles were: 1) walking as a social activity and a cultural experience, through techniques and methods that approach it from an anthropological and artistic perspective; 2) the practices of graffiti on the city walls, as a field of social claims, cultural re-enactments and contemporary political expression and confrontation; and 3) reflexivity in anthropological research, the relations between self and Other in the field. Students had the opportunity to apply ethnographic research techniques and methods to the broader social and cultural context of their student life, to use multiple means of recording and networking, and to reflect actively on the ways of ethnographic research and documentation, anthropological representation and knowledge dissemination in academic and non-academic settings. The ethnographic workshops will continue with renewed themes in the coming years.

Ethnography Seminars

From 2000 to the present, the Ethnography Laboratory has organized numerous anthropological research seminar, where junior and senior researchers had the opportunity to present their research work in an academic environment of creative dialogue and critical feedback.

 The ethnographic archive

The Ethnography Laboratory has been engaged in the collection, recording and classification of ethnographic texts (books, articles in journals and edited volumes, theses) that refer to the Greek ethnographic context. The process of documenting publications in a centralized database on Greek ethnography has also been linked to the online services of the National Documentation Center. The process of cataloging is in process and a significant number of relevant publications are already archived (https://age.openabekt.gr/).