»Collaboration as accessible knowledge (-making)«
Annika Benz (she/her), M.A., Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology,
University of Cologne

The premise of my presentation is that the reason for choosing a collaborative
approach to research, our “why”, should dictate how we approach, organize, and
publish collaborative projects. As a social movement researcher, I am highly
influenced by participatory action research. PAR is a field that was originally created
between actors in many different places in the “Global South” and researchers located
at academic institutions all over the world aiming to tackle real life problems through
providing access to academic tools and processes. I will take my own research within
the German Climate (Justice) Movement as an example to discuss the practicalities
of accessible research processes and their wider implications in struggles for equal
opportunities and justice.
 

»Conflicts and ethics in collaborative filmmaking«
Martin Gruber, University of Bremen

I have been experimenting with collaborative approaches of filmmaking in different
cultural and social settings. If the ideas and ethical standards of workshop participants,
local partners and workshop convenors collide, different conflicts may arise. What can
we learn from such dynamics? I would like to share some cases from my work and
discuss their implications and possible avenues to deal with them.
 

»Reflecting on the Ethics of Research Collaboration in a Global North-South
Context«
Jonathan Ngeh, GSSC, University of Cologne

In this presentation, I aim to highlight the importance of equal partnerships in research
collaboration, especially within global North-South partnerships, and to critically
assess some of the practical tools and strategies for achieving equal partnership. My
discussion draws on ethnographic research conducted in Cameroon since 2016,
focusing on human trafficking and migration from Cameroon to the Gulf Cooperation
Council (GCC) states. Why is equal collaboration important? What benefits can this
approach bring? These questions underpin my argument.
 

Stars Don’t Squeeze into Squares: On Curating Artistic Forms of Mental Health
Knowledge Dissemination and the Academic Art of Missing Out
Johanna Couvée, Ghent University
Curator Moving Within & There is Nothing Wrong with People

In response to the dominance of biopsychiatric frameworks in Western mental health
science, policy, education and practice, cultural initiatives have emerged as vital
arenas for cultivating diverse and inclusive forms of knowledge creation and
dissemination. This workshop presentation explores how curatorial and artistic
methods in Brussels-based programs like Moving Within and There is Nothing Wrong
with People challenge biomedical and depoliticized frameworks, offering embodied,
experiential, and community-centered understandings of the intersection of mental
health and social justice. By departing from a pronounced commitment to the place of
mental health in our society, and an intensive form of curating (from the word
กฎcurareกฏ, i.e. to care) that interweaves it with art and activism, these initiatives
foster a bottom-up and collective meaning-making often overlooked by traditional
academic approaches. We then pose the questions: What could we learn from these
cultural spaces about study design, data generation and collection, analysis, and
dissemination of knowledge on mental health? How can we preserve the complexity
of situated and experiential knowledge throughout the processes of analysis and
publication? This session examines how collaborative and curatorial practices help
rethink traditional research processes to acknowledge lived, embodied, artistic, and
community-based insights.

»Theater as Ethnography?
Opportunities and challenges in creative collaborative research in the Moroccan
High Atlas.«
Nina ter Laan, University of Cologne

This presentation explores a collaborative project that used (digital) theatre as an
ethnographic research tool to investigate digitalization and social change in a rural
community in the Moroccan High Atlas Mountains. Initially developed in response to
pandemic travel restrictions, the project began with online and later on-site theater
workshops involving researchers, a theater maker, and local participants to stay in
touch, continue the research, and foster collaborative knowledge production. Using
this project as a case study, I will discuss both the potential and the complexities of
using theater, and the arts more generally, as an ethnographic tool. I will also reflect
on the value of arts-based methodologies as decolonial interventions in anthropology.