The theme for this special issue, which examines the transdisciplinary travels of ethnography at the intersections of anthropology, ethnography, cultural studies, performance studies, sport and physical culture studies, as well as theology, emerged from a roundtable panel coconvened by Magdalena Kazubowski-Houston and Virginie Magnat at the Canadian Association for Theatre Research (CATR) Annual Conference held at Brock University in 2014. This discussion became the basis for their co-authored presentation titled “Transdisciplinary Travels of Ethnography: Potentials and Perils” for the 2015 International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry hosted by the University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign. This special issue of Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies offers a unique opportunity to enter into a cross-disciplinary dialogue by opening this discussion to an international community of qualitative researchers whose work engages with ethnography. In recent years, the transdisciplinary romance with ethnography has become an urgent topic of concern vehemently debated among social sciences and humanities scholars in informal conversations and graduate seminars. Responses to this romance have varied, ranging from an outright skepticism and criticism to initiating conversations and ethnographic collaborations across disciplinary boundaries. Notwithstanding, thus far, no special issues or edited volumes have taken up the question of what is at stake for researchers employing ethnography within, as well as across, disciplinary formations sanctioned by the neoliberal university. This issue addresses this publication gap by asking the following: What is lost and gained when ethnography “travels” across disciplines? How can ethnography’s transdisciplinary travels contribute to how we might conceptualize, reimagine, and practice ethnography today and in the years to come? What does it mean for ethnography to “travel” within a competitive and profit-driven neoliberal academia, where the pursuit of knowledge is no longer seen as a public good and an end in and of itself? While many anthropologists and ethnographers in cognate disciplines have been critical of the pursuit of knowledge detached from real-life concerns and social problems, and have, instead, practiced socially engaged and interventionist research that benefits the people with whom they work, the utilitarian notions of knowledge under the neoliberal academic regime represent something quite different entirely. As Kazubowski-Houston (see this special issue, 2018, pp. 410-422) asserts, the language of social justice and activism has been co-opted by the neoliberal academy to disparage the notions of knowledge for knowledge’s sake to advance its entrepreneurial goals and agendas. Also, as prominent anthropologist Paul Stoller notes in his recent Huffington Post blog, ethnography has come under attack from other scholars, most frequently from legal and quantitative researchers. Its plausibility, accuracy, and honesty are questioned and contrasted with the rigour and verifiability of “scientific” methods (Stoller, 2017, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-stoller/indefense-of-ethnography_b_8028542.html). Stoller’s entry blog is a rebuttal to legal scholar Paul Campos’s recent essay scathing the ethics and legitimacy of Alice Goffman’s (2014) controversial ethnography, On the run, investigating the damaging and dehumanizing effects of policing of African-American men in a Philadelphia neighbourhood. Consequently, academic ethnography frequently finds itself in defense of its own legitimacy and authority as a research methodology. Certainly, Stoller’s entry blog is an indication 737100 CSCXXX10.1177/1532708617737100Cultural Studies <span class=\"symbol\" cstyle=\"symbol\">↔</span> Critical MethodologiesMagnat and Kazubowski-Houston research-article2017

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Ethnography, anthropology and appropriation: Reflections from within and beyond the discipline.

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Introduction to Special Issue: The Transdisciplinary Travels of Ethnography:

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