Thursday, 19 November 2020, 3PM
Online Event | General Public

What does it mean to observe and to observe with a purpose? What does one need to practice in order to be a skilled observer or a trained observer? This aspect of observation is plugged into disciplines like anthropology and processes such as the scientific method.  Skilled observation has been systematized, and as a method it is coopted into acts of study and the production of knowledge, art, artifacts, and expertise. However, humanities, the sciences, and enterprise are not the only domains in which skilled observation is valued. It is by and large cultural and is necessary for survival anywhere and in almost any context. Our identities are shaped by what we are taught to notice and observe. Of the abilities we have, it is one of the few that does not have to be productive. It can also be pleasurable. 

While observation can have a transformative effect on the observer, we know less about what it does to the observed. This aspect of observation is a slippery one. Though one can observe without interfering, the act is not entirely benign, not entirely innocent. Individuals describe the uneasiness they feel when being observed by an anthropologist. Poets write about the joys of being unobserved. In a world that runs on big data, where relationships are forged in social media and under a climate of surveillance, is it still possible to be unobserved? And do we want that?

About Padma Perez

Padmapani L. Perez is an anthropologist by training and a writer by heart. She is the author of Green Entanglements: Nature Conservation and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in Indonesia and the Philippines (University of the Philippines Press, 2018). She also wrote and published Shelah Goes to a Da-ngah, a children’s book that complements Green Entanglements’ ethnographic chapters on her Philippine fieldsite. Together with her sister, Padma owns and runs the independent bookstore Mt. Cloud Bookshop, which is located in their Baguio hometown. Padma is currently Asia Editor and Project Lead for the Agam Agenda, which seeks to stoke climate conversations through stories and art. The Agam Agenda is a project of the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities.

This online event is free and open to the public.

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