Crumpled Paper Boat

"Boldly experimental, the contributors to this invigorating collection reveal the seriousness and creativity with which contemporary anthropologists—alert to the explosion of narrative form in fiction, poetry, cinema, and elsewhere—are breathing new life into ethnographic writing; in so doing, they reopen the possibilities of this most vital form of ethnographic expression." - Hugh Raffles, author of Insectopedia

"This is an extraordinary project. The powerful writing does exactly what is promised: it is a demonstration of the value of what the editors term experiment, and a case for writing as pragmatic intervention." - Lawrence Cohen, author of No Aging in India: Alzheimer’s, the Bad Family, and Other Modern Things

"In a ‘post-truth’ world, where facts have become less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief, this publication is of timely importance. . . . It is a text that encourages the reader to embrace writing as a practice immanent to the world, rather than a detached reflection upon society and our place within it." - Fawzia Haeri Mazanderani, LSE Review of Books

“There is still much to learn about cultivating uncertainty, failure and collaboration in geographic writing and research, and this volume invites just this kind of casting off.” - Ursula Lang, Antipode

"[The book's] experimental yet highly deliberate modes of ethnographic writing can also enable articulating the most sensitive nuances of anthropological pursuit. . . . One of the valuable qualities of the collection is precisely its openness to potentially vulnerable encounters." - Ana Svetel, Anthropological Notebooks

"This is an outstanding volume to use as provocation, to reflect on one’s own practice and history, as well as for teaching. I can see students becoming excited at the possibility of an anthropology that takes as its departure point the very hesitations and unknowns that we are schooled to suppress." - Paloma Gay y Blasco, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

"I recommend this book to professionals and students of social anthropology for its inspirational invitation to write ethnography differently and to continue to question and think beyond familiar ideas about what ethnography (should) look like." - Markus Schleiter, Anthropos

"The volume challenges anthropological conventions on multiple fronts and provides both an energizing example and a refreshing reminder that powerful writing energizes our knowing and can bring anthropology out of its mostly self-imposed limits of speaking." - David Syring, Anthropology and Humanism

"The Paper Boat Collective . . . demonstrates that not only can ethnography survive, but by incorporating an aesthetic mode of uncertainty, vulnerability, and adventure, it is better equipped to connect with the violent storms and hopeful struggles of a complex and untidy world.… The sense of journey is palpable in the persistent exhortation to go beyond: beyond the tangible, beyond the human, beyond oneself, beyond the real." - Jason Danely, Anthropology Book Forum