Visual Ethnography

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VISUAL ETHNOGRAPHY PRESENTATION : DESIGN & DELIVERY | SPRING 2011 | JOSH RITENOUR analyzing human behavior through the lens of a camera

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Presentation created in Presentation, Design and Delivery. January 25, 2011

Transcript of Visual Ethnography

Page 1: Visual Ethnography

VISUALETHNOGRAPHY

PRESENTATION : DESIGN & DELIVERY | SPRING 2011 | JOSH RITENOUR

analyzing human behavior through the lens of a camera

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Visual anthropology logically proceeds from the belief that culture is manifested through visible symbols embedded in gestures, ceremonies, rituals, and artifacts situated in constructed and natural environments.

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VISUALEXPLORATION

PRESENTATION : DESIGN & DELIVERY | SPRING 2011 | JOSH RITENOUR

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Culture is conceived of as manifesting itself in scripts with plots involving actors and actresses with lines, costumes, props, and settings.The cultural self is the sum of the scenarios in which one participates.

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VISUALEXPLORATION

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Ethnographers employ photographs in the field to induce responses in an interview. The primary function of photographs taken in the field is as an aide-de-memoire, to help reconstitute events in the mind of the ethnographer.

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VISUALEXPLORATION

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On a formal level, photographs taken by anthropologists are indistinguishable from the snapshots or artistically intended images taken by tourists-that is, there is no discernible anthropological photographic style

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If one can see culture, then researchers should be able to employ audiovisual technologies to record it as data amenable to analysis and presentation.

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In order to use photographs either as data or as data generators we need to have some notion of how viewers treat and understand photographic images, whether those viewers are informants or researchers.