I made a start with mapping different interesting communities and experts and will continue adding to these, plus I’ll add the events I found to the right topic. But let me know if you have any other directions you think I should look into
I took some time to think this over and I think we should pass this time (but not in general).
In any case, regarding the field, it is your call @Nica. I am not competent to say which data is valid and useful.
An important part though is the resources invested. The budget is not huge for this project and we should call the shots which can bring the most to the project.
IMO, what is needed is a line of inquiry that builds on the first report and explores further the questions raised there (but this is my-very-unexpert-on-the-matter opinion). Does this make sense and could you prepare a plan like this? With that, we can look for events that comply.
Example here for the things that make me lean towards no: the fair is in Dusseldorf and it is on plastics (not cars/automotive/mobility/precious metals). It would include some (if not all) interviews in German. This adds some complexity to it, including rehiring a German speaking ethnographer.
I am ok with all of this and suppose Sirin would be available, but would not like to rush into it without a plan.
Apologies for the delayed response. I thought over what Ivan has said – I agree that this event was something that was not ideal for us to pursue, but from my perspective primarily because of the German language issue, not the theme issue.
I still think interviewing people at a “lateral” event like that could be valuable if “circular economy” seems on their agenda bulletpoints (as it was with this event), and part of the issue with the car events (which also became an ethnographic insight) was that people are not really familiar with that concept, and it’s not a part of their vocabulary in any big way. So it would be interesting to do a lateral event that does operationalize the “circular economy” concept (which is a pillar concept in our research), and interview the folks there about cars/car ownership.
I do share Ivan’s concern that it would have been in German. Is it were possible to conduct those interviews in English, I would have said let’s try it out (and I would have coded them).
In short, I am happy to pass on this event but the logic of focusing on events focused on circular economy and materiality (e.g. plastics) rather than cars per se makes sense to me, for future events.
@jos you are not in Dusseldorf, are you? If you, and were available, were I would say maybe worth going there tomorrow or Wednesday just to check it out and see if some English speaking interviews were possible (it still runs for 2 more days after today, right?) But I think it’s too uncertain to plan out a special trip for it…
