Accessing the Imaginary Realm: Expanding methods accessing fieldwork contexts of imagination through co-creative practices and dialogic learning in Anthropology
Johannes Sjöberg
(University of Manchester)
Contribution description:
This paper will draw on 12 years of experience teaching the interdisciplinary and practice-based PHD programme AMP to ask how co-creative practices and dialogic learning in Anthropology can help expanding methods in ethnographic research to access the imaginary realm of the fieldwork.
Paper long abstract:
This paper will summarise 12 years of experience teaching the interdisciplinary and practice-based PHD programme AMP (Anthropology, Media and Performance) to PhD candidates with backgrounds in Theatre, Film or Anthropology. AMP started in 2010 as a collaboration between the Anthropology and Drama departments at The University of Manchester. The programme built on the combined legacy of Victor Turner’s Anthropology of Performance, the Granada Centre of Visual Anthropology and pioneering work in Applied Theatre at the university. The strong interest in ethnofiction and the work of Visual Anthropologist Jean Rouch that I shared with co-founder Paul Henley, would form the fundament of AMP methodology through intersubjective and reflexive approaches.
The AMP programme aims to combine ethnographic fieldwork methods with creative drama practices, inviting candidates from both fields to conduct collaborative and creative practices with the participants during the fieldwork period. Over the years PhD researchers have conducted fieldwork on a variety of topics including migrants crossing the Mediterranean, HIV survivors in Chile, ritual performance among shamans in the Amazon basin, Muslim youth exploring changing identities in Manchester, etc. The fieldwork research and co-creative practices have resulted in feature length films, photo exhibitions, participatory animations, radio dramas, and other works of art exploring the boundaries of ethnographic method by engaging with the imaginary realm of the fieldwork through fiction and improvisation.
The paper will draw on video clip samples produced as part of the programme to ask how the combined dialogic learning of AMP and the fieldwork experience can contribute to shared anthropological knowledge and innovation by facilitating access to the imaginary worlds of the participants.
Accepted Contribution:
Contribution description:
Paper long abstract:
This paper will summarise 12 years of experience teaching the interdisciplinary and practice-based PHD programme AMP (Anthropology, Media and Performance) to PhD candidates with backgrounds in Theatre, Film or Anthropology. AMP started in 2010 as a collaboration between the Anthropology and Drama departments at The University of Manchester. The programme built on the combined legacy of Victor Turner’s Anthropology of Performance, the Granada Centre of Visual Anthropology and pioneering work in Applied Theatre at the university. The strong interest in ethnofiction and the work of Visual Anthropologist Jean Rouch that I shared with co-founder Paul Henley, would form the fundament of AMP methodology through intersubjective and reflexive approaches.
The AMP programme aims to combine ethnographic fieldwork methods with creative drama practices, inviting candidates from both fields to conduct collaborative and creative practices with the participants during the fieldwork period. Over the years PhD researchers have conducted fieldwork on a variety of topics including migrants crossing the Mediterranean, HIV survivors in Chile, ritual performance among shamans in the Amazon basin, Muslim youth exploring changing identities in Manchester, etc. The fieldwork research and co-creative practices have resulted in feature length films, photo exhibitions, participatory animations, radio dramas, and other works of art exploring the boundaries of ethnographic method by engaging with the imaginary realm of the fieldwork through fiction and improvisation.
The paper will draw on video clip samples produced as part of the programme to ask how the combined dialogic learning of AMP and the fieldwork experience can contribute to shared anthropological knowledge and innovation by facilitating access to the imaginary worlds of the participants.
Anthropology as education
Session 1