{"id":706,"date":"2013-09-13T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-13T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=706"},"modified":"2014-10-28T17:25:46","modified_gmt":"2014-10-28T17:25:46","slug":"a-need-to-know-basis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/a-need-to-know-basis\/","title":{"rendered":"A Need to Know Basis"},"content":{"rendered":"

About fifteen years ago my history professor asked our graduate history class asked a very strange and confusing question: \u201cWhen we research a moment in history, do we believe we can actually capture some reality that is out there\u2026or are we doing something else?\u201d\u00a0 I was totally baffled by what this professor was getting at. If we didn\u2019t believe that our studies of history informed us about some real reality out there, then what is the point of doing history?\u00a0 This question came about the time Sarah Pink\u2019s first edition of her book Doing Visual Ethnography<\/em> appeared, suggesting that the issue of what we can really know was topic of debate among many disciplines at this time. However, back then, I was totally oblivious to this major philosophical turning point in research that my professor was hinting at.<\/p>\n

It is the philosophical underpinnings of Sarah Pink\u2019s Doing Visual Ethnography (2nd<\/sup> ed.) <\/em>that I found most challenging and enlightening.\u00a0 And, photography and video provide a perfect format to understand this philosophical change of perspective on research.\u00a0 The book largely focuses on the practice and methods of photography and video as research tools, giving practical and helpful advise throughout.\u00a0 However, her book is a sustained argument against older forms of research where the written word best captures actual reality. She suggests that there has been a \u201ccrisis\u201d where \u201cpositive arguments and realist approaches to knowledge, truth and objectivity were challenged.\u201d (Kindle ed. 38)\u00a0 This crisis (centered in anthropology) opened up for other disciplines opportunities to explore not only how research is done, but to explore the effects of the researcher on the subjects studied and to question the actual outcome of the research.\u00a0 Pink sets forth a new understanding of the \u201crelationship between scientific realist and what I call \u2018reflexive\u2019 approaches to the visual in ethnography.\u201d (Kindle ed.\u00a0 132) Reflexivity is a central concept for Pink, in that all research in general, but visual ethnology (and anthropology and sociology) specifically required the researcher to enter into the context that is being studied.\u00a0 The presences of the researcher changes attitudes, emotions and self-awareness of the subjects, in the same way that pulling out a camera will change a group\u2019s self-consciousness.\u00a0 The researcher must be aware of these effects on those studied.\u00a0 They should also be aware that the results of their studies will always come from their perspective (their worldviews, culture, training and influences) and can only capture their particular take on that reality they have studied.\u00a0 Pink then concludes: \u201cThis means abandoning the possibility of a purely objective social science and rejecting the idea that the written word is essentially a superior medium of ethnographic representation.\u201d\u00a0 (Kindle ed. 139)\u00a0 Through the discussion of various roles of video and photographs as research tools, Pink illustrates that indeed even a single photo can bring multiple meanings and emotions, a wide variety of stories and insights, dependent on who is viewing the photo, without ever fully capturing all of the reality that it represents.<\/p>\n

For a younger generation, this way of thinking might not be so earth shattering as they have grown up with the concepts of subjectivity, pluralism and many realities.\u00a0 For those of us of earlier generations, who have grown up in a black and white, solid existence, there is a sense of unease when it suggested that there is no single, solid reality out there.\u00a0 Weaned on Enlightenment thinking, we were taught that knowing \u2013 read \u201cfacts\u201d\u2013 was what was important above all else.\u00a0 This striving to \u201cknow it all\u201d has resulted in tremendous innovations, but it has also resulted in a century of human devastation and destruction.\u00a0 The search for facts or what is absolutely certainly didn\u2019t lead us to that promised better world.\u00a0 In fact, it has caused us to miss (as Graham Greene called it) \u00a0\u201cthe human factor\u201d: the knowledge that comes in relationship, negotiation, stories and emotions.\u00a0 Here is what Pink does so brilliantly: to argue that finding the \u201creal\u201d is not all that important. That it is in sharing images, emotions and stories we gain a deeper understanding and maybe even vital insights.\u00a0 But Pink asks us to be content with getting closer to reality without having to be definitive; to recognize that the goals of achieving absolute knowledge has never been and never will be achieved.\u00a0 This acceptance of the failure of objectivity and positivism my come hard for some of us, but in doing real life with real people, it might be a move in the right direction.<\/p>\n

It is in Pink\u2019s examples of the actual practice of ethnography that I found her work so compelling.\u00a0 Her sensitivity to the people she researched (her informants) is evident in her instructions of using photography and video in new cultures and situations.\u00a0 Her insights might provide a great primer for missionaries entering into a new culture.\u00a0 Let me share just a few of her suggestions that might inform any cross-cultural work:<\/p>\n