The Biosphere, is the layer around the planet containing the sum total of all living organisms. Within this layer of life is another stratum that has been referred to as \u2018the \u201cEthnosphere\u201d, the social web of life\u2019 [1]. David Wade defines the Ethnosphere as \u2018as the sum total of all thoughts and intuitions, myths and beliefs, ideas and inspirations brought into being by human imagination since the dawn of consciousness\u2019 [1]. We are a part of this being and imagination; this wonderful aliveness. We need each other as we explore the extents of our individual being and global community. Based on what we have come to know, through our explorations and own research, our bias develops and the lens through which we gaze is affected. How can we trust those through whom we receive information, that they have endured a reflexive approach to their research? How can we attune to a rigorous reflexivity in our own approach to research and transference of information?<\/p>\n
Ethnography (the systematic study of people and cultures) stimulates an expansive vision for intra-cultural and cross-cultural understanding and interpretation. Cultural and organizational perspectives can be stifled for lack of available information. In the absence of adequate words to inform or enlighten, Visual Ethnography may contribute significantly. There\u2019s a new attention or way of listening that visual ethnography offers which serves to enhance relative comprehension from within or on the outskirts of a given subject. When cultural enmeshment hinders perspective on a subject, well-differentiated visual ethnography can help with detangling or detachment, teasing out the truth on a subject or situation therein. Apathy or ignorance can be adjusted by the glancing at an image or consideration of a detailed story that visual ethnography reveals on a subject that is distant from the informant, whether by geography or by interest\/concern.<\/p>\n
Visual Ethnography calls for at least a somewhat balanced sensitivity both for the subject and the informant. The reason, for gathering information and presenting research material, consists of truth and justice. Pink writes that the shaping of an informed qualitative visual research method must come \u2018out of interactions with local people and institutions rather than being preconceived\u2019 [2]. Further, that \u2018ethnographers should be interested in how informants use the content of the images as vessels in which to invest meanings and through which to produce and represent their knowledge, self-identities, experiences and emotions\u2019 [2]. Truth is for the student and justice, the informant. The reflexive ethnographer may be relieved of the pressure held by such responsibility in allowing for the interpretation of their project, the personal encounter with the truth and justice of their work, to reveal as it is intended to for each one uniquely.<\/p>\n
As we listen and look around, thinking about the application of the noises and images we encounter in relation to the questions and unknown shadowlands of our culture, informants and the information our subjects contain become of vital importance for the visual message we would like to portray for a world, who beyond apathy and ignorance, are wondering. There was a soundbite this morning at Chapel. Not a photograph, though hopefully a visual was kept, accompanying the emotion of the moment, for those who were present. Nevertheless, the time and the space will not forget it. A woman, ragged and raw from a night in the wet and cold, spoke. And, she kept on speaking.<\/p>\n
Discomfort was felt with those listening as she mumbled freely. One person, a regular to our early morning devotionals was about to step in with best intentions, offering prayer and thereby an end to the discourse. I leaned over and quietly asked that we wait and allow this person to continue. Perhaps she is used to being cut-off, perhaps she expected that we would cut her off? And, she kept talking. There wasn\u2019t a censor to her subject matter and, there was a wide range to it. And, she kept talking. Everyone was listening. There was silence and a forlorn stare as if out from an abyss, not to catch an eye with anyone. Something more than words encaptivated us this morning. This was a classroom and our teacher, one of the voiceless.<\/p>\n
The voiceless ones frequent podiums and have the spotlight far less than millionaires and of course, less than the regular voices of charisma and self-help. After all, what can you learn from a voiceless one? There was something of the unknown expressed this morning in Chapel. Perhaps there is something of our distant selves that we can draw near to as well? Visual Ethnography gives sound to silence and can arouse the inner Helper, whose voice can be stolen for all the noise and knowledge, to the podium revealing things unknown that wait patiently for a creative observer in the shadowy areas of our culture. Down this many-faceted alleyway of discovery, as we learn something of one another, close by or far away, we may learn something about ourselves.<\/p>\n
[1]\u00a0Davis, Wade. 2009. The Wayfinders. House of Anansi Press. Toronto, Ont.<\/p>\n
[2]\u00a0Pink, Sarah. 2006. Doing Visual Ethnography. Sage Publications Ltd: London.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Biosphere, is the layer around the planet containing the sum total of all living organisms. Within this layer of life is another stratum that has been referred to as \u2018the \u201cEthnosphere\u201d, the social web of life\u2019 [1]. David Wade defines the Ethnosphere as \u2018as the sum total of all thoughts and intuitions, myths and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"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],"class_list":["post-24383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-pink-doingvisualethnography","cohort-lgp10"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24383","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\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24394,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24383\/revisions\/24394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}