Research Design for Visual Ethnography
Course Objectives
- Helping the MSc student to systematically formulate questions central to their research, positioned in relation to relevant academic debates.
- Providing practical preparations for the complexities of fieldwork, given the operationalization of research questions.
- Critically exploring the possibilities offered by audiovisual means, in relation to both conducting anthropological fieldwork and producing empirically-based audiovisual research outputs.
Modes of Instruction
- This course is designed around a series of modules that combine practical skill training with conceptual theoretically-driven frameworks. Rather than suggesting that Practice and Theory are mutually exclusive, these combinations will help you think more dynamically about your research practice and how it can speak to scholarly concerns.
- As explained on the About page, this online platform provides you access to a variety of self-paced lessons and supplementary materials. These components are complimented by face-to-face meetings where you will practice your new skills, get feedback, and discuss material.
- Interwoven throughout these modules are a series of Supervisory Group Meetings designed to workshop a series of writing assignments that will help you develop your thesis project research proposal due in December. You should read all your group member’s assignments prior to the session and be prepared to share your feedback.
Modules
The course utilizes a modular framework to engage with a series of different methodological approaches structured around drawing, sound, video, and photography. On the one hand, these modules provide an intensive framework for practicing these new experimental methodologies and attuning your research skills. Students will be instructed on a series of multimodal research approaches, which have been designed to foster a practice-based approach to ethnographic research. On the other hand, these modules have a conceptual framework that will help you develop your proposal. These are designed to help you conceptualize visual ethnography as a methodological approach that lifts multimodal practices from a set of tools and techniques into a coherent system for engaging with research topics.
Preparations
The first part of every module requires you to prepare your equipment ahead of class and review the provided guidelines and instruction videos (Tutorial videos and readings should be completed before the first class session). You must also review the online video lectures that feature intellectual engagements with the field (Seminar videos and readings should be completed before the second class session). Each seminar module includes a selection of literature and media-based work for you to engage ahead of the meetings, which will serve as the basis of discussion during the seminar session. Always complete these ahead of the meeting and be sure to reflect on them in your journal.
Class Sessions
Each module consists of (at least) two class sessions (video receives more attention during the Methods in Practice week in Amsterdam).
- The first meeting focuses on practicing technical skills to become secure in using the equipment before you are put in more challenging circumstances. This session will provide intensive hands-on training that prepares you to independently execute your Field Study Assignment.
- The second meeting serves as a seminar to discuss the readings and other course materials in more depth and situate the practice-based elements within a more conceptual framework.
Assignment Overview
Research Proposal Assignments (RPA)
A series of written assignments have been created to help you develop your proposal. These will be submitted to your Supervisory Group for feedback. RPAs should be emailed to your supervisor and group members no later than 23:59 on the Tuesday before the Supervisory Group session. This gives the rest of your group and your supervisor two days to read and comment on each other’s assignments in advance of the Friday meeting.
Field Study Assignments (FSA)
In an effort to understand how these different approaches interrelate, you will be executing a series field studies in each of these modalities at one specific field site, thus scaffolding the insights from one study onto the next in a process of constructing substantive knowledge. During each unit you will be asked to assess your field site through a new modality, which aims for students to build a repertoire of complementary skills, in which you will utilize drawing, photography, video, and audio recordings in order to develop a holistic and agile media-based research practice. Elaborating your study both through the modes of practice and by moving back and forth from your ‘site’ to the ‘studio/lab’ should enable discoveries that help you to continually transform your recording strategies. You will assemble these field studies into mode-specific assignments — drawing, photography, audio, and video.
FSAs should be submitted to Pitch2Peer (P2P) no later than 23:59 on the Monday after each module (after the MiP week with Module 3). Each student will be assigned others to review. For full credit peer reviews should be completed within 3 days.
Crit Presentations
Periodically, we will have longer class sessions, in which audiovisual work (FSAs) will be presented in multimodal combinations to the whole class for live feedback by your peers and instructors. Giving feedback is an important skill to develop. While it is understandable to feel insecure about new work, we feel that it is crucial for you to hear how others perceive your work on its own terms. For this reason, we commonly do not let producers explain their work or respond to ‘misunderstandings’ until the very end of the feedback. We are not interested in judgment values, but honest and engaged assessments. If we take audiovisual scholarship seriously, then we need to also critically exchange ideas about our work and our peers’ work. We borrow the notion of “crit” (short for criticism) from the art world, where practitioners must regularly present their work to peers and instructors. For more about this feedback form look here.
Upload your Crit Presentation on Blackboard/P2P by 23:59 on the day before each Crit Session.
Module Checklist
- Begin the module by reading the introductory text
- Watch the video lectures in part 1 before the first class session
- Watch the video lectures in part 2 before the second class session
- Read the assigned text, watch supplemental videos, listen to sound recordings, and visit relevant websites (add notes & citations to Zotero)
- Prepare your tools as instructed. Don’t forget to bring the necessary tools to class
- Come to the first class for hands-on training and complete the series of basic exercises
- Complete your Research Proposal Assignment and submit on the Tuesday before the second class session.
- Come to the second class session (seminar) prepared to discuss the module’s materials, which will be facilitated by pre-assigned prompts.
- Independently, complete your Field Study Assignment. Document the site in your journal and write your reflections.
- When you return to your workspace, back up your materials. Prepare your AV graphics with the appropriate editing software, name and export as per stated protocols.
- Upload your FSAs to Pitch2Peer by the Monday following the second class session, including a short written reflection, which you may have rehearsed already in your journal.
- Peer reviews of FSAs should be completed within 3 days of their due date.
- The Plenary “Crit” sessions will periodically require students to present work to the entire class for feedback
Assessment
Our approach to grading is meant to facilitate innovative work rather than perfection of standards. This is meant to reduce pressure for perfection and encourage experimentation. Accordingly, if you complete all the assignments on time and show a commitment to engaging the criteria for each element, then you will automatically earn 8,0 for the course. The grade can increase with exceptional work, but failure to engage the assignments in a meaningful way or to complete work by the assigned deadlines will result in a lower grade. Rather than merely an average of each assignment, a final graded assessment will take into account your overall investment and development of research ideas over the semester. Each individual assignment will be marked ‘plus’ or ‘minus’; if you receive a ‘minus’ on an assignment it must be resubmitted
The expectation is that all the assigned work is completed in a timely manner. As such, a missing assignment will result in 0,5 overall point reduction (in other words more than 4 missing assignments results in failing the course). A late assignment will result in 0,25 overall point reduction. Students are also expected to provide peer review of Field Study Assignments using the Pitch2Peer (P2P) interface accessible in Blackboard as well as in-person feedback on Research Proposal Assignments during the Supervisory Group meetings. Reviewers should take seriously the task of providing actionable critical feedback. Guidelines will be provided in each module to guide students in making well-structured assessments. These peer reviews are an integral part of the assignments, so failure to complete these peer reviews or tardiness in completing them will result in the same grade reduction as outlined above.
- 40% – FIELD STUDY ASSIGNMENTS (FSA), CRIT PRESENTATIONS, & PEER REVIEW
A series of assignments meant to put your skills into practice. Our assessment will consider five main factors:- how well you met the parameters of the assignments
- the level of effort to master technical skills
- the overall engagement with your field site and topic
- an effort to experiment with different formal aspects
- constructive review of peer assignments
- 40% – RESEARCH PROPOSAL ASSIGNMENTS & FEEDBACK
This consists of five written assignments. Assessment will consider four main factors:- how well you met the parameters of the assignments
- the coherence of your message
- the complexity of your text
- constructive review of peer assignments
- 20% – JOURNAL ENTRIES
Students are required to keep an ongoing ‘field journal’ through the year that specifically reflects on tutorial exercises, field studies, and method reflections. You will submit your journal to your supervisor at the end of each phase of the program. The first due date is 2 December and will be returned to you the following week in your one-on-one supervisor meeting. The journal will be collected again after you return from the field and after the Thesis Seminar. Assessment will consider four main factors:- demonstrates depth of engagement with the course materials
- provides the appropriate basis for keeping a journal while conducting the master’s research
- makes at least three 1-page entries each week
- each entry is at least 100-words long or provide the equivalent level of attention in drawing, mapping, or alternative kinds of engagement
See an excellent example of journaling by our former student, Renate Bijlholt.
Literature and Other Course Materials
Readings required for this course include this online course-book and all additional supplements. There will be an exam!
The main supplements include:
| Robben, A.C.G.M. and J.A. Sluk | |
| 2012 | Ethnographic Fieldwork: An Anthropological Reader, 2 edition. Wiley-Blackwell, Malden, MA. (purchase/borrow copy) |
| Barbash, Ilisa and Lucien Taylor | |
| 1997 | Cross-Cultural Filmmaking: A Handbook for Making Documentary and Ethnographic Films and Videos. University of California Press, Berkeley. Link ➙ (.pdf) |
| Other articles are accessible electronically or through the library. | |
- Viewings will primarily be selected from the library’s subscription to the four volumes of Ethnographic Video Online published by Alexander Street Press.
- Additional audio/visual materials are accessible through each module.
