{"id":2340,"date":"2014-09-10T10:08:55","date_gmt":"2014-09-10T10:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=2340"},"modified":"2014-09-13T23:21:29","modified_gmt":"2014-09-13T23:21:29","slug":"painfully-reading-about-visual-ethnography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/painfully-reading-about-visual-ethnography\/","title":{"rendered":"Painfully Reading about Visual Ethnography"},"content":{"rendered":"

Painfully Reading about Visual Ethnography<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before reading Sarah Pink\u2019s book, Doing Visual Ethnography<\/i>, I would have to admit, I had never heard specifically of ethnography<\/i>. \u00a0Anthropology, yes. \u00a0Cultural studies, yes. \u00a0Sociology, yes. \u00a0But ethnography, not so much. \u00a0So first, I found this book to be helpful in opening my eyes to a new field, or at least niche, of study that fits a little bit between the things I have known. \u00a0\u00a0Pink defines ethnography as, \u201c. . . an approach to experiencing, interpreting and representing disciplinary agendas and theoretical practices as a process of creating and representing knowledge (about society, culture and individuals) . . . \u201d [1] \u00a0Pink goes on to explain ethnography as, \u201c. . . the observable, recordable realities that may be translated into written notes and texts, but also for objects, visual images, the immaterial and the sensory nature of human experiences and knowledge.\u201d [2] \u00a0I believe my interest on this topic was piqued because of my current thinking about my dissertation and the possible relevance of how ethnographic methods and principles could be applied.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, after my initial interest was piqued and an introduction to ethnography was established, the impact and interest in the rest of the read was quite minimal. \u00a0It appeared to me that Pink had one point to make. \u00a0I believe her point was that ethnographic practices are relative and subjective to time, space, situation and unique experience. \u00a0Pink stated, \u201cThe key to successful photographic research is an understanding of the social relations and subjective agendas through which they are produced and the discourses through which they are made meaningful.\u201d [3] \u00a0Additionally she said, \u201cEthnographicness of any image or representation is contingent on how it is situated, interpreted and used to invoke meanings and knowledge that are of ethnographic interest.\u201d [4] \u00a0While the focus of this book was visual ethnography, and many critiques and practices were given throughout for visual ethnography, the recurring mantra or banter was on the relativity and subjectivity of doing ethnography as a whole. \u00a0Ethnography and the Reflexive Approach<\/i>, might have been a better title.<\/p>\n

Now to be fair, I understand Pinks point but maybe it just seemed a little insesent, possibly even working against the entire theory as she wrote with what I will could call a protective sense. \u00a0<\/i>Here is what I mean by that. \u00a0If the point of visual ethnography is to study culture, society and situation and produce qualitative knowledge information, it seems to work <\/i>against the work<\/i> if you immediately start so narrowly focus the impact of that qualitative information. \u00a0Pink wrote, \u201cAny photograph may have ethnographic interest, significance or meanings at a particular time or for a specific reason.\u201d [5] \u00a0But she so personalized and situated the use in time and the particular experience that it seemed to me to speak against the value and worth of the work. \u00a0She later wrote, \u201cEach viewer used his or her own cultural and experienced-based knowledge and moral values to give meanings to the images.\u201d [6] \u00a0To me Pink\u2019s defense of the reflexive approach was taken to an extreme leading to the possible thought that if photographs, videos and hypermedia and the knowledge and \u00a0information that can be gained from them is so subjective, is there anything ultimately true that can be claimed or is what the image, footage or media means<\/i> completely up for grabs. \u00a0I have heard the debate in art <\/i>posed by this question, \u201cWho defines what a piece of art work means, the artist or the viewer?\u201d<\/p>\n

I would agree with Pink\u2019s point, there is a need for caution when studying culture, society and individuals, that we do not make broad sweeping assumptions and claim universal truths from small experiences and exposures, but overall I feel she overemphasized the point and took something away from her work. \u00a0Granted Doing Visual Ethnography<\/i> is what I would call a technical manual <\/i>for practicing ethnographers and students of ethnography, but overall I found it to be written as an introduction with micro-examples <\/i>and micro-illustrations<\/i> that seemed lacking effective relevance and overall made it a very difficult and laborious read.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

[1] Pink, Sarah. Doing Visual Ethnography: Images, Media and Representation in Research<\/i>. 2nd ed. (London: SAGE, 2007) p.22<\/p>\n

[2] Ibid,. p.22<\/p>\n

[3] Ibid,. p.95<\/p>\n

[4] Ibid,. p.23<\/p>\n

[5] Ibid,. p.67<\/p>\n

[6] Ibid,. p.76<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Painfully Reading about Visual Ethnography Before reading Sarah Pink\u2019s book, Doing Visual Ethnography, I would have to admit, I had never heard specifically of ethnography. \u00a0Anthropology, yes. \u00a0Cultural studies, yes. \u00a0Sociology, yes. \u00a0But ethnography, not so much. \u00a0So first, I found this book to be helpful in opening my eyes to a new field, or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"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":[493,273],"class_list":["post-2340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-pink-doingvisualethnography","tag-pink-ve","cohort-lgp5"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340","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\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2340"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2341,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340\/revisions\/2341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}