Short Abstract

This panel explores how multimodal ethnography can open spaces for embodied understanding, reflection, and dialogue, challenging polarization through sensory, visual, and affective ways of knowing.

Long Abstract

In an increasingly polarized world, ethnographers face the challenge of creating spaces where diverse perspectives can coexist. This panel invites contributions that use multimodal and visual ethnographic methods (such as film, photography, sound, installation, or theatre-based approaches) to explore how knowledge is produced and communicated through sensory and material engagements. We are particularly interested in the role of embodied and affective knowledge, and the potential of visual forms to open dialogue between researchers, participants, and audiences. This includes works that examine how these methodologies not only deepen understanding of their field of study but also shape the researcher’s own reflexivity and positionality.

By bringing together films, installations, and paper presentations, this panel seeks to bridge not only the gap between analytical and sensory modes of knowing, but also between communities and perspectives increasingly divided by social and political polarization. How can multimodal ethnography foster understanding and connection rather than division? How do embodied, affective, and sensory forms of engagement transform the way researchers relate to their participants, their material, and themselves? We welcome classic paper presentations, but also contributions that experiment with form and that push the boundaries of what ethnography can do and how it can bring people together across divides.

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