EXEUNT OMNES

Look look! It’s a new publication! This is my comics-based piece appearing in Leaving the Field, edited by Robin James Smith and Sara Delamont. This was one of those projects that was a pleasure to write because the editors were so very lovely from start to finish. They worked with the fact that all the contributors were writing during the worst paroxysms of covid, amid the disruptions of our lives and work. It is also the very last thing I wrote that appears under the old surname.

This book is all about leaving the field in countless ways –from flourish to sneak to quiet goodbyes to tears to joy–and my chapter is a comics-based meditation on it all. In it, I draw upon the work of two of my heroes: First, a piece by my former colleague at Anthropology and Education Quarterly, the brilliant Dr. Ariana Mangual Figueroa. Her chapter in Paris & Winn’s Humanizing Research is titled, “La Carta de Responsibilidad: The Problem of Departure” , and it was my introduction to responsibility and risk and kindness and complexity as tied up in the researcher role.

Second, I was so inspired here by the work of Lochlann Jain, fellow artist and expansive, creative thinker. His Things That Art was what made my comic work in research and representation possible, full stop. There’s never been a more elegant take on the potential beauty of visual thinking in anthropology than this. I want to be him when I grow up. Seriously, Lochlann. Text me. Anytime.

If you are interested in reading this book, and my chapter in it, you can find it here (and certainly at your university library) https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526157652/

Pirie [as Galman], S. C. (2023). Exeunt omnes: The case for bad exits in childhood ethnography. In Smith R. J. & Delamont, S. (Eds.). Leaving the field. pp 45-61. Manchester University Press.