Working Images: methods and media in ethnographic research |
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Chapter 11: Sarah Pink Conversing with Anthropology: words, images and hypermedia text In this chapter I will discuss the potential of hypermedia for ethnographic representation, arguing that any 'new' form of ethnographic representation needs to both reference and depart form existing forms (such as writing and film) in ways that enable it to be conversant with and critical of existing discourses in mainstream anthropology. Whilst recently some visual anthropologists have suggested that digital video and the new forms of video research and production that it facilitates might imply new ethnographic film (video) forms that conform more closely to the demands of anthropology that those of broadcast television (which has in the past dominated ethnographic film production) I shall propose that more and different genres of ethnographic film is not the only solution to the isolation of ethnographic film from mainstream anthropological writing. Instead, proposing that hypermedia might facilitate new opportunities for visual ethnographers to engage with existing filmic and written discourse in anthropology, thus allowing visual and written narratives and knowledge to interlink in the same text. And subsequently to be conversant with mainstream debates in anthropology whilst also critically engaging with existing forms of representation.
Sarah Pink lectures in the Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University. She has done fieldwork in Spain, Guinea Bissau and England on visual culture, the senses, gender and performance using visual images and technologies as part of research and representation. Her books include Women and Bullfighting (1997), Doing Visual Ethnography (2001), Home Truths: changing gender in the sensory home (2004) and Applications of Anthropology (2004). Web page http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ss/depstaff/staff/pink.htm e-mail: s.pink@lboro.ac.uk |
