User:Siffat05/Visual anthropology

Visual Ethnography

As a methodology, visual ethnography is able to guide the design of research as well as the methods to choose for data collection. Visual ethnography seeks to provoke a deeper reflexive engagement in the ethnographic search for meaning and understanding in educational processes. There are many methods available to conduct visual ethnography. Visual ethnography is a research methodology that brings “theory and practice of visual approaches to learning and knowing about the world and communicating these to others” (Pink, 2013). Visual ethnography brings “theory and practice of visual approaches to learning and knowing about the world and communicating these to others” (Pink, 2013).

Pink (2013) was concerned about the subjectivity of the researchers in producing ethnographic knowledge. Individuals’ reality should be constructed through the researchers’ point of view. Here, the reality is subjective- not objective, thus, it should not be recorded through scientific methods. The reflexive approach takes central stage here to foster a clear focus on how “ethnographic knowledge about how individuals experience reality is produced, through the intersubjectivity between researchers and their research context” (Pink, 2013, p. 36). Visual ethnography suggests a negotiation of the participants’ view of reality and a constant questioning on the part of the researcher (Barrantes-Elizondo, 2019).

Schembri and Boyle (2013) explained the process of analysis in visual ethnography, and how the researchers develop systematic modes of analytical processes on location. They suggested ways to read cultural experience and interpret a visual text. This is the process of cultural immersion. They said here, “the treatment of written text, visual text is compared, contrasted, and sorted into categories until a particular aspect of the culture is identified” (Schembri & Boyle, 2013).