What makes a piece of poetry, fiction or a sound recording also anthropological? How can drawing or sketching become ethnographic? Is it enough that the work is by an anthropologist or ethnographer? How can we make these alternative forms of expression more visible and legitimate, yet also uphold academic standards? ... Quite differently, Roxanne Varzi (University of California Irvine) uses ethnographic fiction as a form of experimentation, but also to protect her subjects and future as an anthropologist of Iran. Her bestselling ethnographic novels maintain the veracity of her research, whilst staying away from politically sensitive specifics. An unintended consequence is that her novels have reached a much broader readership beyond academia.

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