When it comes to the study of practice, one of the main challenges for ethnographers is often the question of their own proficiency. If it is widely regarded a necessity to speak the local language in order to successfully conduct ethnographic research, do we also have to be capable of playing a certain instrument, cloning a protein, or writing an algorithm? What is the relationship between proficiency and the standard methodology of participant-observation?

For a long time, ethnomusicologists have interrogated and practiced what they call bi-musicality (Hood 1960; Baily 2001; Witzleben 2010), referring to the notion that learning to perform within the parameters of a specific musical tradition constitutes one central aim of ethnomusicological research. In this context, acquiring proficiency becomes an objective of ethnographic fieldwork.

Ethnographic work in science and technology studies or medical anthropology that investigates socio-technological constellations in the making often requires a significant degree of proficiency as their objects of study become more heterogeneous (Mol 2002; Coleman 2013). Hence, Michi Knecht (2013, 92–93) has argued that ethnographers need to further their knowledge and competences in order to understand the languages and forms of expertise in their respective fields. If we follow Lev Manovich’s (2013) call for all scholars who investigate contemporary culture and society to engage with and account for software as an all-permeating layer, will we need to start speaking code?

Although the role of the ethnographer has been the subject of extensive scholarly reflection, the relationship between proficiency and participant-observation has not been explored systematically. Following research on skills and enskillment (Ingold 2000; Cox 2003; Herzfeld 2004; Grasseni 2007; Jones 2011), we have invited a group of scholars to reflect on the importance of their own learning processes and acquisition of technical expertise during the course of their fieldwork.

Our contributors were asked to consider the following questions and to add their own: To what extent did your research require you to become proficient (enough) with local practices, to understand the logics behind the materialities used and how they, in turn, informed people’s (inter)actions? What degree of proficiency is required and how proficient can we possibly become in order to study different domains of practice? We hope that this session of Correspondences will contribute to the refinement of a shared set of criteria on how to deal with the question of proficiency in a more differentiated way.