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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cSay, Cheese!\u201d\u00a0 \u201cSonr\u00ede!\u201d\u00a0 \u201cL\u00e4cheln!\u201d \u201cTabasamu!\u201d \u201c\u0443\u043b\u044b\u0431\u0430\u0442\u044c\u0441\u044f!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 These are just a few of the countries I have traveled to and taken pictures of wonderful people I have met.\u00a0 We all have pictures of things we have seen, places we have visited, and people we have met.\u00a0 Who would of \u201cthunk\u201d that there was such an enormous practice that uses photos, videos and the like to do research on people.\u00a0 I speak of the practice known as visual ethnographic.\u00a0 \u00a0While reading Doing Visual Ethnography<\/em> by Sarah Pink I was utterly \u201cshuttered\u201d into a new focus of pictures, video and their usage.<\/p>\n Traditionally ethnography has simply been looked at as no more than just collecting data over a period of time as one spends watching, asking questions, and observing people in an effort to collect data on that people. \u00a0\u00a0It was merely a particular method or a set of methods employed to achieve the desired research.\u00a0 I rather agree with Pink however, as she describes ethnography as more of a process of creating and representing knowledge about a society or culture or even individuals that are based on one\u2019s own experiences.\u00a0 With this understanding we are able to offer versions of our own experiences of reality that remain loyal to the context in which that knowledge was produced. (Pink p. 18) with that said, we must understand the limitations to our own version of reality. \u00a0No ethnographic work, regardless of its breath or depth, can fully and accurately represent any people.\u00a0 However, when one incorporates the use of visual images the representation of the people being studied moves toward a greater level of clarity and precision, which is what any researcher desires.<\/p>\n There is a bit of ambiguity however, as to what is classified as a useful ethnographic photo or video.\u00a0\u00a0 Who is to say that your picture of your great-grandmother sitting on her front porch in the early 1900s is simply just a picture of a loved one who has since passed on, or, is in fact, a useful video ethnographic document and therefore to be classified as one?\u00a0 This is where the pinning down of this art, or process, known as visual ethnography, is most difficult.\u00a0\u00a0 There are no clear-cut categories that allow us to determine which photo has more \u201cethnographicness\u201d (Pink\u2019s own word (p.19) ) potential over another one.\u00a0 The classification and interpreting of photographic material then lies in a very ambiguous place. \u00a0Academic interpretation, analysis, and categorization of such photographs and video remain at the mercy and subjectivity of their viewers. Therefore the academic meanings given to visual images are \u201carbitrary and are constructed in relation to particular methodological and theoretical agendas.\u201d\u00a0 (Pink P. 94)<\/p>\n Ah, yes, agendas.\u00a0 When approaching any form of research we unfortunately come with an agenda.\u00a0 There seems to be no difference when we are documenting people with the written text or through a lens.\u00a0 All photographs and video will be interpreted in different ways by different people in different times through out the research project.\u00a0 (Pink P. 95).\u00a0 It therefor behooves us that we make sure that our preconceived notions and our agendas do not get in the way of discovery as we engage the people. \u00a0\u00a0I appreciate that Pink understood this tendency of ours and addressed this in her statement saying: \u201cresearchers should not have fixed, preconceived expectations of what it will be possible to achieve by using visual research methods in a given situation.\u201d\u00a0 (Pink P. 32)<\/p>\n Finally, there is the matter that Pink addresses with regards to ethics.\u00a0 As we study people around the world attempting to understand them better, we must come to the realization that the frame work in which, and through which, we want to understand them is indeed already bias and filtered through my American\/western mind set. \u00a0For truly the approach to ethnography will place us in ethical dilemmas.\u00a0 What higher ground will we rise to and desire to pull others up to?\u00a0\u00a0 It cannot be simply that of the moral code of the West (though that code is rapidly heading south), nor can it be our own personal convictions that guide our way.\u00a0 Pink referred, or rather deferred, to the Anthropologist Dr. Nigel Rapport, professor of Anthropological and Philosophical studies at the university of St. Andrew, when searching for an answer to our ethical approach.\u00a0 Rapport falls on the side where the individual is of the highest importance.\u00a0 If anything is deemed as \u201churting\u201d the individual then we should not allow that practice to continue, \u201cwhere an ethic of interpersonal tolerance is not managed.\u201d\u00a0 (Pink P. 38) Rapport sites such things as Naziism, female circumcision, infanticide, and religious fundamentalism as those things that historically have hurt the individual.\u00a0 So, the question for us is where do we fall?\u00a0 What is that which grounds us to our ethical standards? Is it, as Rapport stated, the individual and their feelings or safety, or is it greater than that?\u00a0 The struggle we must all undertake, whether we are focusing on a people group through a lens, or through the power of the typed word, is that we must know where the Maker of all these people stands. \u00a0Ultimately He has the highest ethical morality and the highest level of love for each one.\u00a0 For love covers a multitude of sins.<\/p>\n ________________________<\/p>\n Pink, Sarah. Doing Visual Ethnography. London: Sage, 2001.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cSay, Cheese!\u201d\u00a0 \u201cSonr\u00ede!\u201d\u00a0 \u201cL\u00e4cheln!\u201d \u201cTabasamu!\u201d \u201c\u0443\u043b\u044b\u0431\u0430\u0442\u044c\u0441\u044f!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 These are just a few of the countries I have traveled to and taken pictures of wonderful people I have met.\u00a0 We all have pictures of things we have seen, places we have visited, and people we have met.\u00a0 Who would of \u201cthunk\u201d that there was such an enormous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"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":[2,279],"class_list":["post-717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-pink","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717","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\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=717"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2912,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions\/2912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}