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- Convenors:
-
Karen Waltorp
(University of Copenhagen)
Melissa Nolas (Goldsmiths College, University of London)
Anne S. Chahine (Research Institute for Sustainability Helmholtz Centre Potsdam)
Alexa Färber (University of Vienna)
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- Formats:
- Panel
- Mode:
- Face-to-face
- Sessions:
- Friday 26 July, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Madrid
Short Abstract:
This panel engages with the promises and perils of multimodal approaches in anthropology. We invite contributions that problematise multimodality’s current moment, which seems a dance between centres and peripheries, to discuss how its complex positionings contribute to the un/doing of anthropology
Long Abstract:
This panel creates a critical and creative space for engaging with the promises and perils of multimodal approaches in anthropology, and its interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaborations. We invite contributions that understand multimodality as an experimental, inventive, and interconnected way of thinking, moving, feeling, and being in the world, and that draw our attention to its application beyond anthropology’s claim on the term. In particular, the panel problematizes multimodality’s current moment of what seems like a restless dance between centres and peripheries. Innately collaborative, multimodality was ‘born’ and came of age in the ‘periphery’ of anthropological research, nourished by close engagements with others in and outside the boundaries of the discipline. Over the last ten years, as a highly attractive mode of experimental research practice, multimodality has gained traction within anthropology’s more traditional centres. In addition, this collaborative and vivid multimodal way of working can readily respond to the increasing demands placed on universities to address societal challenges and communicate research beyond the academy. In this sense, it has become central. But what does this position mean for the critical, creative, and heterodox practices, and plural practices formerly developed from the ‘periphery’? What are the promises and perils of multimodality now being situated at the ‘centre’? And how does this affect the multiplicity of interests, knowledges, and temporalities that are involved, especially if they do not concur with the demands of the academy? Can this complexity be recognized and proactively contribute to the un/doing(s) of anthropology? And should it?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 26 July, 2024, -Judith Laister (University of Graz)
Paper short abstract:
To this day, the aesthetic-anthropological approaches of cultural anthropologist Ina-Maria Greverus (1929-2017) have been marginalised in academic discourse. The lecture is dedicated to a critical re-reading and extension of her – how you could call it – “multimodal” anthropology.
Paper long abstract:
To this day, the aesthetic-anthropological approaches of cultural anthropologist Ina-Maria Greverus have been marginalised in academic discourse. Against the backdrop of the currently prominent discussions about multimodal approaches in anthropology, a closer examination and critical expansion of her work seems productive. Greverus, who conceived anthropology at least as translation work, developed her “pathways towards an aesthetic anthropology” as a response to the writing culture debate. Her understanding of aesthetic anthropology is less concerned with a most objective – written or visual – representation of knowledge about cultural worlds ("writing culture") than with the question of what scientific practice can achieve within in a society. Alongside or in part together with Greverus, there are numerous researchers who think about power-critical aspects of field research and knowledge transfer: from engaged science to situated knowledge, from tentacular thinking to assemblage research, from the ignorant schoolmaster to the anti-ethnographic ferry master, from post-representation to multimodality. With reference to various historic and recent examples, the presentation pays particular attention to the concept of "translation" - understood as the establishment of connections between the heterogeneous human and non human actors that researchers encounter in the course of their field work.
Letizia Bonanno (University of Manchester)
Paper short abstract:
We often celebrate the affordances of multimodal anthropologies but we rarely mention the amount of labour needed to make multimodal anthropologies possible. I suggest that discussing labour is crucial to keep our theoretical debates & methodological euphoria about multimodality real and realistic.
Paper long abstract:
While academia celebrates the affordances of multimodal anthropology and encourages scholars to engage in experimental, creative and collaborative modes of knowledge production, a crucial dimension is ignored: the amount of labour that multimodal approaches and outputs require but very often remains invisible and goes unnoticed.
In this paper, I suggest that bringing labour into the conversation is crucial to keep the theoretical debate and the methodological euphoria around multimodal anthropologies real and realistic: doing multimodal anthropologies, I argue, does take a lot of labour – as in intellectual commitment and reflection, time and resources. Crucially, time and resources are often not readily available/accessible to ECRs who are, on the one hand, increasingly pressured to publish not to perish and are, on the other, invited to engage with multimodal approaches to pitch their research in fancy, creative and aesthetically appealing ways.
Drawing on my long-term engagement with the multimodal subfield of graphic anthropology, I argue that multimodal approaches/outputs are not creative outbursts which, as such, do not require any labour. Creating a multimodal output- an ethnographic comic, for example- takes a great deal of labour, which is often solitary and accomplished beyond our "official" working hours, during which we must prioritise writing. If we pay more attention to the relationship between labour and multimodal anthropologies, we might avoid creating another anthropological turn, another idealised theoretical bubble for a few, resourceful scholars and, I dare suggesting, we might even be able to prevent multimodal anthropology from becoming another field of academic exploitation.
Aneta Kopczacka (University of Warsaw)
Paper short abstract:
The paper examines the benefits and challenges of interdisciplinary and multimodal research, using the example of a project investigating curatorial strategies towards vernacular photography held in public museum collections.
Paper long abstract:
The paper examines the benefits and challenges of interdisciplinary and multimodal research, using the example of a project investigating curatorial strategies towards vernacular photography held in public museum collections, understanding curatorial practices broadly - not only in the context of exhibition development but also in terms of curating a collection and the overall museum program.
The author conducts research on vernacular photography, departing from the examination of the image itself and instead analyzing the ways it is exhibited, the places of its collection, the narratives of those describing and cataloging it, and the methods of its valuation in professional discourses. This requires combining methods developed in the fields of humanities and social studies and navigating the borders of disciplines such as art history, visual culture studies, museology, cultural studies, and anthropology. The free integration of methods and the currently promoted interdisciplinary research offer significant opportunities but also pose a range of theoretical and practical challenges.
The paper will focus on the author's experiences in methodological balancing between image and text, archive/collection and exhibition, official documents and institutional practices, as well as global discourse and local context.
Camilo Leon-Quijano (Aix-Marseille University (IDEAS - ANFAA))
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on an aesthetic reflection on La Cité (www.lacite.org), I discuss the necessity of rethinking multimodal engagement through scenographic and editorial choices. I explore power dynamics underlying marginal representations through a discussion on the multimodality of public anthropology.
Paper long abstract:
In this presentation, I will discuss critical forms of multimodal research in anthropology based on the Cité project (www.lacite.org). The project consists of a photobook (Leon-Quijano 2023), a moving exhibition, and a website. It showcases my doctoral research (EHESS, 2020) conducted in Sarcelles, a peripheral city on the outskirts of Paris.
My work examines the relationship between hegemonic and peripheral forms of urban representation in a socially marginalized space (i.e., Canteux 2004). As a photographer and anthropologist, I analyzed how local residents experienced a space that was nationally considered as marginal. To do this, I focused on various forms of visual representation of the city, including the images I produced as a photoethnographer. In La Cité, I present a reflection that is both epistemological and aesthetic. I emphasize the importance of dual engagement, both ethnographic (Cefaï 2010) and photographic (Leon-Quijano 2022), to provide a critical account of the situations experienced by the anthropologist in the field. In this presentation, I will delve into the power dynamics that shape these peripheral forms of visual representation. Specifically, I will focus on the multimodal expressions of these peripheral experiences through the book and traveling exhibition I conceived and exhibited in 2022 and 2023. Drawing on material and narrative reflection, my presentation aims to contribute to the discussion on rethinking multimodal engagement in anthropology. To this end, I will explore the importance of scenographic and editorial intervention in fostering new forms of public anthropology.
Dimitrios Theodossopoulos (University of Kent)
Paper short abstract:
I will critically interrogate the confinement of Graphic Ethnography—and multimodality, more generally—to the broader field of social scientific methodology, at the exclusion of their potential for critical analysis, or generation of unique theoretical perspectives.
Paper long abstract:
I am reflecting upon multimodality through the lens of Graphic Ethnography, a field that I supported since its conception. Contemporary Graphic Ethnography has emerged as a self-conscious multimodal subfield, building upon conceptual developments in the Anthropology of Drawing, and Visual Anthropology. It has now acquired academic legitimacy, and attempts to unsettle ethnographic production, challenging—albeit very politely—the hegemony of textual representation. Nevertheless, and to a great extend, Graphic Ethnography is accepted primarily as a medium of illustration, dissemination and academic impact. Undoubtedly, Graphic Ethnography has made a contribution in all these respects; but this is, one may say, recognition for providing context or popularising, not a contribution in making social theory. This encourages us to consider the theoretical potential of Graphic Ethnography. Is this hidden behind its auxiliary role as an innovative medium? To what degree is the multi-modal turn confined to the realm of anthropological (or social scientific) methodology? I will explore these questions from a critical angle, hoping to undo some preconceptions regarding the role of Graphic Ethnography, and multimodality more generally.
Charlie Rumsby (Sussex University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper offers an autoethnographic account of screening a short film to different publics. What can academic and non-academic responses to an ethnographic film teach us about anthropology's potential as a publicly engaged discipline?
Paper long abstract:
Multimodal anthropology is particularly effective for casting a vision of an alternative future, one where communities and their cultures are understood, structural inequalities are challenged, and society can flourish. The possibility of a publicly engaged anthropology should underscore the discipline’s relevance in making comment on society, human rights, politics etc., yet its current absence in public debate, especially in British anthropology, raises the question about who anthropology is for. In this paper, I argue that the repositioning of multimodality to the centre of the discipline can hold promise if we, as multimodal researchers, carry with us the potency of the periphery into teaching, research, and public practice.
A critical reflection on anthropology’s ‘publics’ will frame the discussion of the paper. Taking the case study of a short ethnographic film “Drive to School”, that documents the provision of education to stateless children in Cambodia, I will offer an autoethnographic account of the embodied experience of screening to academic and non-academic publics. Through this example, I reflect on why anthropology often feels closeted, and hidden away from the public. I will also offer comment on why the anthropologist must become comfortable with the critique that comes from showcasing their work to different publics in order to build resilience and resistance within the academy.
Jared Epp (Carleton University)
Paper short abstract:
My interlocutor and I made what we called ethnographic B movies. We didn't take the content and aesthetic of filmmaking too seriously; what mattered was having fun together. How can our outsider approach to multimodality fit within a filmic anthropology that demands clarity of concept and context?
Paper long abstract:
My friend, interlocutor and collaborator David Ross and I called our approach to speculative ethno-fiction filmmaking the ethnographic B movie. Not taking ourselves or the content and aesthetic of our films too seriously afforded a novel fieldwork encounter based on playful absurdity. In this paper I propose the ethnographic B movie as a legitimate approach to multimodal anthropology that others could use. Through this gesture to share, I highlight the tension between legitimacy and novelty within a multimodal mainstream. David has a PhD in sociology yet for various reasons has ended up living precariously on the social and economic margins in Toronto, Canada. Despite his circumstances, he remains committed to generating and sharing knowledge. He writes dense and singular texts about his concept 'the musicality of reality' only to receive an endless stream of rejection letters. Our filmmaking provided space to manifest his vision - in it's unique and confusing singularity - beyond writing and an opportunity to project a version of himself beyond his marginality. Although David strives for mainstream recognition, he remains steadfast to his vision and way of communicating it; even as he acknowledge it keeps his thinking on the margins. We encounter this negotiation through David's performances in the films. Does sharing our approach beyond it's novel origins undermine David's struggles against and criticism of conventional knowledge production? Perhaps, much like David's ideas, the ethnographic B movie doesn't translate to the centre. If so, along what paths can absurdist and outsider multimodal anthropology travel towards legitimacy?
Alexandra Diana Hanae Sastrawati (Princeton University)
Paper short abstract:
A transformative shift in care ethics emerges in Singapore's mental health and creative arts fields. My paired image-text canvases converse with my artmaking interlocutors, using multimodality to explore perceptual collaboration, as a way to be in relation-with them.
Paper long abstract:
A sea change in the ethics of care is coming into view in the Singaporean mental health and creative arts sectors. My ethnography examines the therapeutic roles the arts play for marginalized populations in post-pandemic Singapore. It focuses on the predicaments of queer folx who participate in the formal art world and migrant construction workers living in precariousness and participating in art workshops. Centering the creative expression that emerges from two kinds of urban precarity—that of queer folx and that of migrant workers—I regard the efficacy (making do by making art) and shared stakes (being set outside full citizenship creates the conditions for mental distress) as starting ground for my research. Studying queer and migrant worlds through the shared aperture of artmaking opens space for anthropology to consider how different kinds of political marginality might be collectively redressed and recast as generative of new aesthetics, politics, ethics and cultural forms. From fieldwork encounters and archivings to composing lyrical photo essays, I find my interlocutors’ artmaking practices to be open-ended: a testimony of suffering; aspiration; sense of relief; workaround; an expressive form that may resonate with healing. My canvases, pairings of images and text, speak with and “nearby” (Minh-ha in Chen 1992: 87) my interlocutors and their creative expression. Multimodality allows me to explore the space-time of perceptual collaboration with my fellow artmakers, as a way to be in relation-with them. This witnessing beyond the ethnographic gaze (Welcome and Thomas 2021) is where I see the promise of multimodality.