{"id":14853,"date":"2017-10-27T06:20:49","date_gmt":"2017-10-27T13:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=14853"},"modified":"2017-10-27T06:20:49","modified_gmt":"2017-10-27T13:20:49","slug":"learning-from-time-a-case-study-for-understanding-the-principals-of-pinks-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/learning-from-time-a-case-study-for-understanding-the-principals-of-pinks-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning from Time: A Case Study for Understanding the Principals of Pink’s Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few years ago I stumbled upon an article on Time.com that convinced me of the power of visual ethnography. The article highlighted a project called \u201cHungry Planet,\u201d in which photographer Peter Menzel teamed up with writer Faith D\u2019Aluisio to visually document what families eat in 24 different countries around the world. Each photograph shows the members of the household in the room in which they dine with a week\u2019s worth of groceries on the table. The photos are then captioned with the name of the country, the name of the family, the name of the city in which they live, the cost of one week\u2019s worth of groceries in the country\u2019s own currency and then the equivalent cost in US dollars. The writer also includes a short list of favorite foods.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

As I clicked through the photographs and read the captions, I felt as if I was getting an intimate view into different cultures. While eating is a universal human behaviour, what we eat, how much we eat, where we eat, with whom we eat, and how much it costs us to eat are diverse experiences. When we moved to France, my grocery bill doubled. In clicking through the \u201cHungry Planet\u201d slide show, I discovered my experience reflected the ethnographic study; fo,r at the time of the study a family of four in California spent about $160 a week on groceries while the same size family in France was spending the equivalent of $420 a week.<\/p>\n

The cost was only visible through the text, of course. What the photographs showed was that the size and composition of an \u201caverage family\u201d was vastly different (15 people in a household in Mali, three generations in a household in Bhutan), that some families dined in the kitchen, others in a dining room, and still others outdoors. It was also clear that some families relied heavily on premade or packaged foods while others were cooking from scratch. Some diets are heavy on grains, some on starch, some on fruits and vegetables, and a few on meats.<\/p>\n

I kept thinking of this project as I read Sarah Pink\u2019s book, Doing Visual Ethnography,<\/em> thankful that I had a frame of reference through which I could understand the methods that Pink was describing. Otherwise, I fear I would have been as lost throughout the entire book, as I was in first three chapters, where the author jumps into a critical analysis of various research methods assuming that the reader is familiar not only with the broad spectrum of social sciences but also with what certain experts think about different research methods.<\/p>\n

I breathed a sigh of relief as I got to the later, more practical chapters (perhaps those should have gone first?) and found I could not only understand what Pink was talking about but see a use for it in my life and ministry. I learned all about the importance of doing an ethnographic study while I was in cross-cultural training for mission work. And in fact, we teach our French church planting students that even though they ARE French, they still need to do an ethnographic study on the neighbourhood in which they want to plant a church. But I hadn\u2019t considered the benefits of a visual<\/em> ethnography.<\/p>\n

As Pink clearly notes, photos are helpful and can tell part of the story, but they are still subjective. She writes, \u201csuch photographic records are limited because they do not indicate how these objects are experienced or made meaningful by those individuals in whose lives they figure.\u201d [2]<\/a> For the \u201cHungry Planet\u201d project, this means that while I may notice fresh vegetables in a photo, I have no way of knowing if they were purchased at a grocery store, a farmer\u2019s market, or grown in a backyard garden. The captions may answer some of these questions, but it may not tell me if the family keeps a garden out of necessity, fear of pesticides, or simply because it\u2019s a hobby.<\/p>\n

In the same way, a church planter may take a photograph of a statue in the middle of the square; however, as we have seen with recent events in the US, a photo of a monument does not communicate the current residents\u2019 feelings about the person or event that has been memorialized.<\/p>\n

And then, of course, the issue of \u201creflexivity\u201d must be considered. This was, perhaps, the most insightful part of the book. One reviewer summarized this principal by saying, \u201cThe researcher’s own cultural perspective comes into play in the selection of photos, the interpretation of the photos, and the presentation of the photos.\u201d[3]<\/a> In other words, while all of the people in the \u201cHungry Planet\u201d project are wearing clothes, the ethnographers\u2019 interest is clearly in food and not fashion. It is the food that is front and center, and the captions are all about the food as well. In the same way, a church planter who loves sports may photograph all the football fields in a village and totally ignore museums or concert halls. But it may be that the city is known for its opera, and to a local, the omission of the opera house in a visual ethnography would signify a gross misunderstanding of the town\u2019s culture.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on the question of \u201creflexivity\u201d has once again reminded me of the importance of self-awareness in the research process. \u00a0No research is purely objective, I bring myself to it. So, as much as possible, I need to be clear about my own interest and biases in a research project. For example, “Hungry Planet” is said to have depicted, “everything that an average family consumes in a given week\u2014and what it costs.”[4]<\/a> For this to be as objective as possible, Menzel and D\u2019Aluisio would need to disclose how they determined that a family was \u201caverage.\u201d Average in what way? Size? Income level? Weight\/food consumption? \u00a0Even the term \u201caverage\u201d is highly subjective!<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> TIME Staff, \u201cHungry Planet: What The World Eats,\u201d Time, accessed October 27, 2017, http:\/\/time.com\/8515\/what-the-world-eats-hungry-planet\/.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Sarah Pink, Doing Visual Ethnography<\/em>, 3rd edition (Los Angeles: SAGE, 2013). 80.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Bill Westfall. 2011. Review of \u00a0Doing Visual Ethnography<\/em>, by Sarah Pink. Goodreads. Accessed October 27, 2017, https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/work\/best_book\/1043416-doing-visual-ethnography.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Staff, \u201cHungry Planet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few years ago I stumbled upon an article on Time.com that convinced me of the power of visual ethnography. The article highlighted a project called \u201cHungry Planet,\u201d in which photographer Peter Menzel teamed up with writer Faith D\u2019Aluisio to visually document what families eat in 24 different countries around the world. Each photograph shows […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[891],"class_list":["post-14853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-sarah-pink","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14853"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14854,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14853\/revisions\/14854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}