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This article puts forward a methodological pathway for work between anthropology and art that is premised on the relation between social and aesthetic form. It draws on the authors' work with cartonera publishers in Latin America, small community-based collectives whose members make low-cost books from recycled cardboard in an explicit attempt to make both the consumption and production of literature accessible to wider society. We begin by describing Dulcinéia Catadora, a cartonera publisher based in São Paulo that is the ethnographic focus of this article. We then present three theoretical propositions, which enable us to analyse not in isolation from, but rather in relation to, social and political processes, asking how ethnographic practice can intersect with aesthetics in a mode which goes beyond the illustrative. We conclude by proposing what we term a 'trans-formal' methodological approach based on a method of 'emulation', opening up new possibilities for research that is multi-disciplinary, transnational, horizontal and participatory.

Neste artigo, exponho como os praticantes da arte contemporânea incorporam desobediência epistêmica e o conceito de ocupação para proporem uma reconfiguração da cidade. Primeiro, argumento que há cada vez mais reflexão sobre a ressignificação do espaço urbano, provocada por um tipo particular de prática de arte contemporânea intersticial; em seguida, defendo que os contextos em que essas práticas ocorrem sugere que artistas trabalhando com tais paradigmas encontram, e respondem a, uma noção totalmente diferente de "participação" do que aquela articulada por Claire Bishop (2004, 2012) ou Nicolas Bourriaud (2002). A localização é essencial ao que caracteriza e forma a prática artística. Situadas na fronteira porosa entre espaços de arte contemporânea institucionais e não-institucionais e frequentemente integradas às complexas lutas pelo direito à cidade, essas práticas ocorrem dentro de redes e hierarquias, que derivam de múltiplos modos de vida. É esta encruzilhada de eixos – o horizontal e o vertical, o efêmero e o utópico – que dá a tal reconfiguração seu potencial único, enquanto também oferece uma teorização da já amplamente observada iminência da arte.

"Cartoneras are community-based publishing collectives that make low-cost books out of waste materials in contexts where paperbacks can cost over a month's minimum wage. The first of its kind, Eloísa Cartonera, was born in Buenos Aires in the aftermath of the 2001 economic crisis. As many families lost work, many turned to other ways of supporting their families by picking through trash for objects to recycle, including cardboard. The founding members of Eloísa began to buy cardboard from these cartoneras with the idea of using it to create hand-painted books (typically priced for the middle class and higher in Latin America) at an affordable price. Cartoneras have their own specific aesthetics, much like zines in the US and Europe, while also finding ways to experiment with, and potentially break down, some social markers between and social institutions and systems"--

A publishing phenomenon and artistic project, cartonera was born in the wake of Argentina's 2001 economic crisis. Infused with a rebellious spirit, it has exploded in popularity, with hundreds of publishers across Latin America and Europe making colorful, low-cost books out of cardboard salvaged from the street. Taking Form, Making Worlds is the first comprehensive study of cartonera. Drawing on interdisciplinary research conducted across Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, the authors show how this hands-on practice has fostered a politically engaged network of writers, artists, and readers. More than a social movement, cartonera uses texts, workshops, encounters, and exhibitions to foster community and engagement through open-ended forms that are at once artistic and social. For various groups including waste-pickers, Indigenous communities, rural children, and imprisoned women, cartonera provides a platform for unique stories and sparks collaborations that bring the walls of the "lettered city" tumbling down. In contexts of stigma and exclusion, cartonera collectives give form to a decolonial aesthetics of resistance, making possible a space of creative experimentation through which plural worlds can be brought to life

Interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity and counter-disciplinarity are the hallmark of cultural studies and qualitative research, as scholars over the past three decades have discussed through extensive self-reflexive inquiry into their own unstable and ever-shifting methods (Denzin and Lincoln, 2018; Dicks et al., 2006: 78; Grossberg, 2010). Building on the interdisciplinary thought of Jacques Rancière and Caroline Levine on the one hand and traditions of participatory action research and activist anthropology on the other, we bring the methods conversation forward by shifting the focus from disciplines to forms and by making a case for aesthetic practice as qualitative research process. In this paper, the question of methods is approached through the action-based Cartonera Publishing Project with editoriales cartoneras in Latin America – community publishers who make low-cost books out of materials recovered from the street in the attempt to democratise and decolonise literary/artistic production – and specifically through our process-oriented, collaborative work with four cartonera publishers in Brazil and Mexico. Guided by the multiple forms of cartonera knowledge production, which are rooted not in academic research but rather in aesthetic practice and community relations, we offer an innovative 'trans-formal' methodological framework, which opens up new pathways for practitioners and researchers to work, think and act across social, cultural and aesthetic forms.

Interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity and counter-disciplinarity are the hallmark of cultural studies and qualitative research, as scholars over the past three decades have discussed through extensive self-reflexive inquiry into their own unstable and ever-shifting methods (Denzin and Lincoln, 2018; Dicks et al., 2006: 78; Grossberg, 2010). Building on the interdisciplinary thought of Jacques Rancière and Caroline Levine on the one hand and traditions of participatory action research and activist anthropology on the other, we bring the methods conversation forward by shifting the focus from disciplines to forms and by making a case for aesthetic practice as qualitative research process. In this paper, the question of methods is approached through the action-based Cartonera Publishing Project with editoriales cartoneras in Latin America – community publishers who make low-cost books out of materials recovered from the street in the attempt to democratise and decolonise literary/artistic production – and specifically through our process-oriented, collaborative work with four cartonera publishers in Brazil and Mexico. Guided by the multiple forms of cartonera knowledge production, which are rooted not in academic research but rather in aesthetic practice and community relations, we offer an innovative 'trans-formal' methodological framework, which opens up new pathways for practitioners and researchers to work, think and act across social, cultural and aesthetic forms.

Interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity and counter-disciplinarity are the hallmark of cultural studies and qualitative research, as scholars over the past three decades have discussed through extensive self-reflexive inquiry into their own unstable and ever-shifting methods (Denzin and Lincoln, 2018; Dicks et al., 2006: 78; Grossberg, 2010). Building on the interdisciplinary thought of Jacques Rancière and Caroline Levine on the one hand and traditions of participatory action research and activist anthropology on the other, we bring the methods conversation forward by shifting the focus from disciplines to forms and by making a case for aesthetic practice as qualitative research process. In this paper, the question of methods is approached through the action-based Cartonera Publishing Project with editoriales cartoneras in Latin America – community publishers who make low-cost books out of materials recovered from the street in the attempt to democratise and decolonise literary/artistic production – and specifically through our process-oriented, collaborative work with four cartonera publishers in Brazil and Mexico. Guided by the multiple forms of cartonera knowledge production, which are rooted not in academic research but rather in aesthetic practice and community relations, we offer an innovative 'trans-formal' methodological framework, which opens up new pathways for practitioners and researchers to work, think and act across social, cultural and aesthetic forms.