Doing fieldwork in Shanghai: Notes on visual methods and ethnographic practices

This contribution offers intimate insights on entering the field, establishing relationships with research participants and the use of visual methods to gather material. It builds on my work on the coexistence between the old and the new in Shanghai, spanning across multiple scales: from the structural forces that trigger and direct globalisation, migration and urban change to the processes of agency, which become manifest in individual perception, attitude and behaviour. The speed and scale of China’s urban transformation require not only the continuous questioning of established theories, but also the creative use of unconventional methods to capture ephemeral conditions, writes Deljana Iossifova