On Tuesday of this week, I was talking with a co-worker about a multi-ethnic ministry event we have coming up in November. \u00a0Santes and I were discussing the session he is going to lead at the event and he made mention of a video, a TED Talk, he would like to show a clip from as an illustration. \u00a0The name of the clip<\/i> or talk<\/i> is \u201cThe Danger of a Single Story\u201d by Chimamanda Ngozi. \u00a0Chimamanda is a Nigerian story-teller who tells of her up-brining where, although being Nigerian, she only had access to British and American children\u2019s literature. \u00a0She became an avid reader at a very young age but developed a skewed view of books and literature where she concluded all books that have been written and all books that should be written must be about little white boys and girls who eat apples and enjoy lovely whether. \u00a0Ngozi goes on to tell other stories, some laughable and others tragic, but her point builds in power and persuasion of how dangerous it is to develop what we know and understand about a person, a people group, a class, a culture or society from the perspective of one story<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Sarah Pink and her emphasis on the reflexive approach to doing <\/i>ethnography, came immediately to mind. \u00a0Whether it is Pink\u2019s \u201cDoing Visual Ethnography\u201d or \u201cDoing Sensory Ethnography\u201d the prominence of the reflexive approach<\/i> that is subjective, compassionate, empathetic, multi-sensory, developing, adaptive, attentive, watchful and highly conscientious about what can be known<\/i>, I believe is motivated by the danger <\/i>Ngozi realized and experienced throughout the learnings of her life. \u00a0The fact that a limited touch, taste, sound, smell or view, literal and figurative, is limited from the broad claims it can make. \u00a0Pink\u2019s greatest position and argument in her writing is limited encounters, exposures and experiences of all kinds are just that, limited and how the field of ethnography acknowledges and handles the \u201cknowing\u201d from the industry is paramount. \u00a0Chimamanda Ngozi stated early in her talk, \u201cHow impressionable and vulnerable we are . . . in the face of a story.\u201d \u00a0Sarah Pink would agree. \u00a0Pink might write, \u201cHow impressionable and vulnerable we are . . . when we desire to claim anything for others from what we have seen, heard, felt, observed, remembered or experienced.\u201d \u00a0Pink is truly emphatic about the reality of the subjective, reflexive approach to ethnography.<\/p>\n
While there is great danger in limited knowing, it is fair to equally state the tremendous power of immersive, experiential learning and knowing. \u00a0Overall, from the reading of \u201cDoing Sensory Ethnography\u201d I benefited the most from the phrase, sensory emplaced learning and knowing<\/i>. \u00a0If there is a single phrase that captures what I would call the aim of the process, method or even the psyche of sensory ethnography, it would be the idea of sensory emplacement. \u00a0A mentality that tries to stand in the perspective, walk in the experience, live in the existence of another to understand and capture the reality and experience through every means necessary is the greatest occasion of being able to convey to others what can be known and understood about another. \u00a0As Pink states, \u201cThus the notion of ethnography as a participatory practice is framed with ideas of learning as embodied, emplaced, sensorial and emphatic, rather than occurring simply through a mix of participation and observation.\u201d [1] \u00a0To think that simple participation and observation that perpetuates a probable cultural chasm between an ethnographer and the subject is missing the remarkable opportunity we have to not only share about humanity, culture and society but to actually delve in fully and experience the opportunity to be transformed.
\n[1] Pink, Sarah. Doing sensory ethnography<\/i> (London: Sage, 2009) 63.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Tuesday of this week, I was talking with a co-worker about a multi-ethnic ministry event we have coming up in November. \u00a0Santes and I were discussing the session he is going to lead at the event and he made mention of a video, a TED Talk, he would like to show a clip from […]<\/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":[504,264],"class_list":["post-2464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ethnography","tag-pink-se","cohort-lgp5"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2464","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=2464"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2465,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2464\/revisions\/2465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}