Ethnography of/with neighbors: Practicing cross-border fieldwork

This article proposes the framework and practice of ethnography of/with neighbors, a metaphorical and methodological orientation toward cross-border research conducted in conditions of regional proximity. Drawing on the Tagalog concept of kapitbahay (houses that share a wall or cling together), the article develops ethnography of/with neighbors as a distinct conceptual, methodological and normative intervention. It foregrounds relational proximity, treats neighborliness as historically produced through shared colonial legacies and postcolonial state-making and positions intra-regional fieldwork as a decolonial practice that confronts the structures organizing knowledge production about Southeast Asia. Based on field visits in the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, this work examines the unevenness of regional mobility and the forms of recognition and care that shape encounters. It advances five methodological propositions that constitute the ethnography of/with neighbors framework, each illustrated through ethnographic vignettes, and calls for intentional engagement, caring collaboration and institutional support for cross-border scholarship within Southeast Asia.