Paper short abstract:

This paper aims at approaching the relationship between photography and ethnology. It will bring the first results ot this collaboration through images and ethnographic stories and broadly discuss the question of valorization of anthropological research through the photographic medium.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I will approach some questions around the collaboration between photographers and ethnologists during the fieldwork. In the mark of my PhD research, I had the opportunity to collaborate with a photographer, Laetitia Gessler, in the context of an ethnographic fieldwork in Mexico, focussed on « neo-Mayan » phenomenon. The collaboration with her aimed at documenting visually the religious diversity of Mérida (Yucatan, Mexico), life journeys (with portrait photos), syncretic altars, as well as rituals and religious ceremonies. The idea was to offer an ethno-photographic work covering the phenomenon of spiritual « hybridations » at the time of globalization. We wanted to capture these new hybrid identities: between ancestral wisdoms and reinvention of traditions. Before, during and after this fieldwork several questions appeared, as the advantages and the disadvantages of such collaboration or ethical/methodological implications of our work. We had the opportunity to expose our work, in Switzerland, during a scientific meeting. The idea would be next to publish a general audience book about neo-mayanism in Mexico. This paper aims at approaching this particular thematic: the relationship between photography and ethnology and the valorisation of the results through this particular kind of communication (ethno-photograhic work). The presentation will bring the first results of this project through images and ethnographic stories. My Phd research is a multi-sited ethnographic investigation (Switzerland, Guatemala, Mexico, Germany), in social sciences of contemporary religions. The research is focussed on the development of a transnational neo-mayanist movement since the "2012 phenomenon".