Paper short abstract:

Building of awareness is an issue the making of every artist. The same can be said about the anthropologist. Observational drawing is a tool shared by both artist and ethnographer. But what drawing are we talking about and how can we pedagogically implement it? This is the topic of this paper.

Paper long abstract:

Drawings, as instruments of ethnographic production, occupy an unstable and discontinuous territory in anthropological methodologies. To a certain extent, ethnographic drawing has occupied an ambiguous place in fieldwork, especially when compared with other methods mobilized and celebrated by the discipline. However, if we look at anthropology we can say that drawings have always been present in the practice of anthropologists: some depict reality while others use it to question this reality - that is, drawing objects, people, rituals, etc., as a means of understanding them.

These last few years, several texts reclaim the use of drawing as an essential tool for the questioning of reality, highlighting the need to empathically reach to the world and its images. Drawing seems to be the accurate way to do this - as it mobilizes the observer's whole body in its making.

Within the context of Summer School courses in Lisbon's NOVA FCSH University, a workshop was thus held in September 2016 and a second one in July 2017. Along with anthropologists Sónia Vespeira de Almeida and José Mapril, the experiment happened. The academic context required an articulation between teachers of anthropological training and others that were more familiarized with the use of drawing and its instruction. Having in mind that the teachers of the department of Anthropology are not experts in this area, my role was to organize a strategy that was able to capture, within the week's work, the main issues of a practical (but ethnographically concerned) approach towards drawing.