In the era of \u201cfake news\u201d, there are questions about what we hear, see and consume as \u201ctrustworthy\u201d or \u201ctrue\u201d information. What does an event mean, how do we understand the words that a person uses, and how \u201cobjective\u201d can reporters really be?<\/p>\n
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In her book, \u201cDoing Visual Ethnography\u201d, Sarah Pink writes that \u201cthe same image may simultaneously be given different meanings in different (but often interconnected) situations, each of which has ethnographic significance.\u201d[1]<\/a> In other words, different people can see the same picture and find different ways to interpret what it means.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The specific example that Pink works with most, which is woven throughout her book , is based on her work with female bullfighters in Spain. The author shares various pictures of female bullfighters and then recounts the different reactions and responses that people have to them, depending on point of view.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There are those who are \u201cagainst female bullfighters\u201d, there are those who are supportive of this expansion of the tradition, and there are those who are simply against bullfighting itself. But Pink goes further. She asks, what does the subject of the photo herself think about this scenario (the subject has an opinion, too, lest she become the \u201cobject\u201d).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The final piece that Pink brings out about the interpretive work of visual ethnography, is to ask what is the location and position of the one \u201cobserving\u201d things or \u201ctaking pictures\u201d? Is she not, also, a part of this picture?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In a way, a photograph can be a \u201csnapshot\u201d, frozen in time, which tells us something \u201ctrue\u201d about that moment. But Pink pushes back on the idea of the \u201cethnographic present\u201d, where a picture is taken and is continually seen as being \u201cin the moment\u201d. Freeze-framing life, or a person or place in this way, she argues, allows the ethnographer to sit apart from the scene. To place authority claims on it, such as \u201cI was there\u201d or \u201cthis was empirically true (just look at the picture)\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But Pink asks the reader to be dubious of such claims. She recognizes that even \u201cprofessional\u201d observers, those engaged in sociological study, are not really \u201capart from\u201d the subject in question. There is a social exchange that always happens and needs to be recognized.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Part of why this whole field is interesting to me to read about, is that it sounds so familiar. I am not a photographer, videographer, artist, or \u201cethnographer\u201d in any sense. But the work that Pink is describing actually sounds a lot like pastoral ministry.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pink tries to define this \u201cethnography\u201d and does so by quoting Martin Hammersley and Paul Atkinson, who define ethnography as a method or set of methods that, \u201cinvolves the ethnographer participating, overtly or covertly, in people\u2019s daily lives for an extended period of time, watching what happens, listening to what is said, asking questions\u2014in fact, collecting whatever data are available to throw light on the issues that are the focus of the research.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n This idea of being a part of people\u2019s daily lives, and whether \u201covertly or covertly\u201d, participating with them, listening, watching, and framing their experience sounds like my work as a pastor. One of the great joys and gifts of pastoral work is \u201caccess\u201d to people\u2019s lives. To be with them in holy moments like birth, death, weddings, baptisms, confirmations and funerals. To be \u201cin the room\u201d as families talk or fight, share or cry, all of it has the ring of \u201cethnography\u201d to it. Of overhearing and listening in, and then, trying to produce some manner of \u201cmeaning\u201d out of the experience.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This “meaning-making” may happen in a Sunday sermon, in telling an experience from the week. Or at a funeral, when re-counting a story for those who have gathered to mourn. Or in a committee meeting, describing why this person would be a good fit as a leader in some ministry area. Like the \u201cvisual ethnographer\u201d in Pink\u2019s writing, the pastor is never fully a neutral, impartial observer. We are in fact, a part of the larger picture.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In a sense, a crafted Sunday sermon is an \u201cimage\u201d in the same way that a photograph or video can be. It is a \u201csnap-shot\u201d that tries to capture and share meaning with people. The role of sermon illustrations is to do this very thing: to paint a picture, or draw people\u2019s imagination to \u201csee\u201d the truth that is being expressed. Word pictures can be spoken (which I what I usually do), but they can also be shown in symbolic form.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pastors and churches are constantly working in the visual arts, because how things are presented, or how they appear, communicates a message. For my church, we have a very \u201ctraditional\u201d looking sanctuary. There is a big cross in the front, there is a high pulpit, a communion table, a choir loft, and pews to sit in. Each of these details communicates something to those who walk in, but maybe not always exactly what we anticipated.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For some, seeing this \u201ctraditional\u201d presentation is comforting, it is familiar, it feels like home. For others, walking into our church can feel like a \u201cblast from the past\u201d, or a return to their troubled childhood, or the shortcoming of churches in previous eras. For others, it can seem as if we only care about the external and \u201chow things look\u201d, but they ask \u201cdo we really care about the spirit?\u201d Others walk in and say, \u201cyour congregation must be rich to keep things looking so nice.\u201d Others come in and say, \u201cwhen are you going to modernize and catch up with the real world?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The point that I am making, is that whether we are self-aware or not, we are still in the picture that we are taking. Or, we are still participants, even when we think we are simply impassive observers. That is true for photographers with their subjects. It\u2019s true for pastors in the hospital room. And it\u2019s even true for a physical space, like a church sanctuary.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the end, I do not know if there is a \u201cremedy\u201d to be made, but it calls for self-awareness. When \u201cdoing visual ethnography\u201d, or presenting something in a visual or observable form, how can we be intentional to say what we are trying to say? How can we be humble enough to know that others will read into what we present and may have radically different responses? And how can we be confident enough to move forward to share our message in a way that people can really see, hear and understand?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n