Ethnographic Writing Workshop and Retreat

September 1-3, 2026

Prof. Clara Devlieger, UNIL

Gladys Robert, UNIL

Sara Wiederkehr, UNIL

Prof. Paul Stoller, West Chester University (Pennsylvania) 

This ethnographic writing workshop and retreat is aimed at post-fieldwork PhD students who are looking for tips and time to focus on writing up away from the daily pressures of teaching, administrative tasks, and/or care responsibilities. 

Returning from fieldwork to face the task of producing a coherent text out of fieldwork material can be a bewildering experience. How do you bring your field site to life? 

The first component of the workshop is aimed at providing tools and techniques for crafting your ethnography. This may include a tutorial on writing programmes such as Scrivener, advice for thick description from an invited speaker, exercises on writing about place, people, and voice from Kirin Narayan's writing guide Alive in the Writing, and/or a session on getting published.

The second component of the workshop is aimed at providing time to apply some of the advice following writing-group techniques. Participants should come to the workshop with a PhD chapter draft or other piece of writing-in-progress. Writing sessions will be 50 minutes followed by 10-minute breaks. At the start of a writing session, participants will be invited to briefly set a realistic goal, either in conversation with a fellow writer or as a written note to self. 

The workshop is aimed at post-fieldwork students preparing PhDs in anthropology, who will be given priority. Places will be given next to students in other disciplines who use ethnographic methods in their research. In your application, please indicate how you hope to benefit from the workshop.

Invited speaker:

Paul Stoller is a professor of anthropology at West Chester University (Pennsylvania). His award-winning work has made major contributions to the fields of sensory anthropology and anthropology of migration. One of his most recent books brings insights from his career together in a reflection on ethnographic writing, Wisdom from the Edge: Writing Ethnography in Turbulent Times. Stoller regularly organises courses on ethnographic writing, which come highly recommended by those who have attended.

Crêt-Bérard, Puidoux

Participation fee: CHF 60 

For students of the CUSO universities (Geneva, Lausanne, Neuchâtel and Fribourg) and from the universities of Bern, Zürich, Luzern, Basel and St. Gallen, accommodation and meals are organised and covered by the CUSO doctoral program in anthropology. 

Travel expenses will be reimbursed via MyCUSO based on half-fare train ticket (2nd class) from the student's university to the place of the activity.

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