The ethnography of process: Excavating and re-generating civic engagement and political subjectivity

This article problematizes the ethnography of process with respect to civic engagement and political subjectivity. Process is approached in a two-pronged sense: as a target of ethnographic/phenomenological discovery and as a place-based issue particular to the US. Regarding the first sense, I examine the dialogic emergence of political subjectivity in specific communication contexts. Concurrently, I raise epistemological questions about the power of words to name states and processes of civic-being. Regarding the second sense, I argue that the experience, expression, and investigation of political subjectivity in the US is informed and hampered by a political/discursive culture that emphasizes discrete 'engagement measures' and 'decisive stances' over processes. Interweaving these two prongs together, I argue for greater experimentation with re-presentational forms that excavate and regenerate processes of civic engagement and political subjectivity. Data stem from ethnographic and theatrical work with young adults in Atlanta and national survey instruments designed to measure 'engagement'.