{"id":9350,"date":"2016-09-15T14:06:07","date_gmt":"2016-09-15T21:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=9350"},"modified":"2016-09-15T14:06:07","modified_gmt":"2016-09-15T21:06:07","slug":"visual-ethnology-and-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/visual-ethnology-and-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"Visual Ethnology and Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"

Doing Visual Ethnography<\/em> by Sara Pink is a window into the world of visual ethnographers.\u00a0 This field of study seems to be a combination of the fields of anthropology, sociology, journalism, and the visual arts.\u00a0 \u00a0Reading this book caused me to search the internet to look at some works of visual ethnographers cited in this book.\u00a0 I discovered that some considered themselves artists, while others claimed to be social scientists.\u00a0 I was intrigued by this.<\/p>\n

This work covers a wide array of issues.\u00a0 Of these, I especially enjoyed the discussion on perspective.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In addressing the inability to be truly objective, Pink states\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201celements of our identities such as gender, age, ethnicity, class and race are important to how researchers are situated and situate themselves in ethnographic contexts.”\u00a0 (Pink Page 37)<\/p>\n

Yet, I am more interested in the meaning that the viewer<\/strong> of visual ethnography places upon a work.<\/p>\n

For example, I was impressed with Pink\u2019s ethnographic study of the woman bullfighter in Spain (beginning on page 54). \u00a0\u00a0The highlight of this discussion began on page 76 as the author discussed a photograph of a bull tossing female bull fighter Cristina Sanchez into the air. \u00a0When this photo was shown to individuals who are against women bullfighting, comments were made that this photo demonstrated that women were not equipped for this sport.\u00a0 When the same photograph was shown to those who strongly opposed bullfighting, the reaction was to cheer for the bull in hopes that it would prevail.\u00a0 \u00a0The same photograph produced a wide array of interpretations.<\/p>\n

This brought to mind a photograph that I took in a remote village in Laos last year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"2015\"<\/a>

Photo by Stu Cocanougher, 2015<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is a photo of a woman and her grandchild.\u00a0 It was one of those photos that just happened.\u00a0 The scorching sun behind her umbrella created an orange glow.\u00a0 It was a rare occasion that both subjects naturally turned their eyes to my camera.\u00a0 This is the uncropped, unedited photograph.<\/p>\n

I have shown this photo to many people and I am amazed at the wide variety of reactions.<\/p>\n

Some are drawn to the woman and say \u201cwhat a beautiful woman.\u201d\u00a0 Others look at her and say \u201cI bet she has had a tough life.\u201d\u00a0 This reaction is more common with the knowledge that she lived in Laos during the Vietnam War, when Laos saw significant death and destruction.<\/p>\n

I have had some people\u00a0focus their attention on the child.\u00a0\u00a0They have commented\u00a0\u201cwhat a beautiful boy\u201d\u00a0and \u201cwhat kind of future will he have?\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, there are others that are drawn to the aesthetics of the photograph.\u00a0 They compliment me as to the framing of the photo or the vibrant light.\u00a0 They never mention the people in it.<\/p>\n

That made me think about visuals that we encounter\u00a0in everyday life: Instagram photos, promotional flyers, YouTube video diaries, even photos used on the evening news.\u00a0 There is no getting away from the subjective nature of graphics.<\/p>\n

This is where the social sciences and fine art meet.\u00a0\u00a0 In essence, these photos became a sort of Rorschach painting in the eyes of the viewers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Have you ever had the experience of viewing a film or a photograph with another person, and having a radically different interpretation of the meaning of the work?<\/p>\n

Do you view photos of friends on Facebook or Instagram?\u00a0 What conclusions have you made about these friends based solely on the photos that they post?<\/p>\n

How can the church utilize photography and video in order to communicate spiritual matters that are difficult to put into words?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0Sarah Pink, Doing Visual Ethnography<\/em>, (New York: Sage Publications, 2014).<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Doing Visual Ethnography by Sara Pink is a window into the world of visual ethnographers.\u00a0 This field of study seems to be a combination of the fields of anthropology, sociology, journalism, and the visual arts.\u00a0 \u00a0Reading this book caused me to search the internet to look at some works of visual ethnographers cited in this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"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":[740,747,897,898,279],"class_list":["post-9350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-visual-ethnography","tag-cocanougher","tag-laos","tag-photography","tag-pink","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9350","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\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}