The ASA2021 Laboratories (Labs) programme provided spaces and opportunities for participants to explore the conference themes in sessions that differed from traditional paper panels. With more flexible and experimental formats, these sessions opened up new methodological, ethical and epistemological possibilities for anthropological theory and practice. Labs therefore explored the conference theme of ‘Responsibility’ in reflexive and innovative ways by allowing for interaction, dialogue and collaboration between the convenors and participants.

This year, several Labs sat at the intersection of Art and Anthropology providing practice-based, collaborative and creative ways of addressing questions of authorship, responsible representation, and communication.

Other sessions provided spaces in which to foster open dialogues on experiences of responsibility in anthropological practice and of translating ethnography into ‘evidence’. Finally, the programme also included sessions which brought together scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds to discuss intersections of the Medical Humanities and Animal Studies. It was an exciting programme of interdisciplinary Labs addressing wide-ranging themes through diverse formats.

See the labs here.