Paper long abstract:

Informed by reflexive anthropology, STS and theoretical reflections on ethnodrama the paper will develop an approach to publics arising in participatory action research. As example serves a collaboratory project in a shrinking city in East Germany which appeared as a public battlefield of several interest groups competing for intellectual authority. The prominent agents all draw on distinct kinds of expertise which are constrained by the logic of knowledge production inherent to their particular institutional background; they aim at exercising power over others and are meant to be utilised in other (artistic, academic, political) contexts. The paper will discuss how in this setting anthropology still can ‚involve the non-professionals' and ‚humanise the academic expert' (Boyer). The preliminary answer is to take into account an always changing anthropological object, not to expect a bidirectional dialogue between consensual partners and to perform research within a complex and unstable network of different public agencements.