"Workshop in Visual Ethnography"

For more details please contact cziesielsky(at)mmg.mpg.de.

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Thursday 9 March

MORNING: 10am-1pm

• Introduction: what is visual ethnography?
• The practice of ethnography: seeing with and without the camera
• Active observation and incidental attention
• Looking at and looking with
• Making visual data
• Experiencing ourselves as seeing subjects
• Beyond words: seeing what can’t be spoken
• An example: the embodied labour of fishmongers
• Going out into the field: using photography to explore the social

11.15-11.30am Coffee break

1-1.50pm Lunch

AFTERNOON: 1.50-6pm

• Looking at what we see and seeing what we look at: participants present their images from the morning
• Seeing and feeling: atmosphere and affect at the edges of vision
• The significance of ‘failed’ images
• Immersion: using the visual to handle the sensory excess of being in the field
• Audio-visual combinations: the value of sound and silence
• An example: looking for rhythm (at a fish market)
• Going out into the field: using film to explore the social

4-4.15pm Coffee break

Friday 10 March

MORNING: 9am-12.30pm

• Participants present their images from the afternoon (yesterday)
• Representation and evocation: the vitality of the visual
• Making sense: the visual as a means of showing social life and as a tool for analysis
• Filming and editing as a ‘creative-analytic process’
• An example: The Passage of Fish
• Visual ethnography: what is it good for?
• Conclusions: cultivating the ethnographer’s ‘skilled vision’

11-11.15am Coffee break

Equipment:
Participants will need to bring a mobile phone which has a camera or a digital camera will be provided to take part in the activities. Please also bring anything you would need to upload your images to a computer!