- Convenors:
-
Janani Ilamparithi
(Anthropour)
Karvileena Deka (Anthropour)
Sonuja Barik (University of Delhi, India)
Send message to Convenors
- Format:
- Panel
- Sessions:
- Friday 10 March, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
The panel explores world-building using anthropological methods multi-disciplinarily. It focuses on adopting multimodal methods to find alternative solutions, increasing preparedness for a futuristic world by observing behavioural patterns & action-oriented iteration to create a sustainable reality.
Long Abstract:
Anthropology tries to understand any kind of phenomenon that includes what has happened in the past, what is happening now, and what will happen in the future. Understanding the phenomenon, makes it simpler to predict future consequences, solve existing problems and create innovations. Anthropology has always tried to look into how societies sustain, whether by changing socio-cultural and economic behaviour, developing new technological methods, or even by assimilating changes in ways of living. Multimodal methods offer the opportunity for alternative realities to nurture robust solutions. These methods have enabled diverse ways of visual representation and efficient data capturing.
In this light, the panel explores world building through an anthropological lens multi-disciplinarily. It accommodates three questions:
1. How do multi-modal methods help in finding adoptable solutions to gain sustainability? (Employing visual and digital anthropological methods to acquire, document, and analyse data)
2. How behavioural patterns are analysed to address contemporary problems to increase preparedness for a futuristic world? (Analysing existing behaviour for better adaptation to changing environment to transcend smoothly into future. For example, the impact of AI in social life today to create preparedness for tomorrow.)
3. How iterative modeling is used to create a sustainable reality? (Inclusion of domain specialists to seek a holistic perspective for a clearer vision of how solutions look before implementation. Topics range from issues of daily living to global problems of climate change.)
We invite research studies and ongoing attempts that are on and around these grounds.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 10 March, 2023, -Anne Sofie Askholm (Aalborg University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper investigates how ethnographic filmmaking can take part in connecting (hi-)stories of normality and naturalized ways of consuming in consumer society. In research on consumption it may help enhance the strangeness of normality and the familiarity of living and consuming otherwise.
Paper long abstract:
Audiovisual methods have a long history within visual anthropology dating back more than a hundred years. As a tool for both inquiry and reflection, analysis and conveying documentation of social and cultural life, it collects layers of information documenting the histories of everyday life. Through processes of editing where the audiovisual material transforms into a montage telling specific stories and disrupting common and naturalized ideas it has been argued that film montage has the ability to help us reflect on the world as it is constructed, the perceptions that follow and help us rethink how the world might be.
This paper investigates how ethnographic filmmaking can take part in connecting (hi-)stories of normality and the naturalized ways of consuming in consumer society, drawing on the practice of design anthropological filmmaking as a way to actively propose alternative ethical and cultural narratives and practices concerning everyday life and consumption. It suggests that the stories of research participants connected with socio-technical infrastructures can disrupt and juxtapose common and taken-for-granted narratives and propose new ones. Though under-researched in research on consumption this tool may help enhance the strangeness of normality and the familiarity of living and consuming otherwise.
The research is based on fieldwork in two locations in Denmark, Langeland and Copenhagen, using audiovisual ethnographic methods by working with a camera as a tool of inquiry and documenting everyday practices and conversations about ethical convictions and developments.
Shivani .
Paper short abstract:
This paper is an urban ethnography of Pune, India which narrates its urban development from a mobility lens using multi-modal methods. It further entails map-based visual storytelling and drawing as a method of representation to understand Pune's growth and future mobility trends.
Paper long abstract:
As a cultural capital and industrial city of Maharashtra, Pune has seen rapid transformations in its urbanising journey that tells the story of a place which now has more vehicular population than human population. This paper is an urban ethnography which narrates the urban growth and development of Pune city using multi-modal methods and unpacks its fast spreading road networks and changing mobility patterns. It further elicits map-based visual storytelling and drawing as a method of representing and understanding the future mobility trends of the city. The paper is also an exploration in the interdisciplinary investigation to comprehend how multi-modal methods are employed in a research study as a method of data collection and data analysis.
Renate Schelwald (Erasmus University)
Paper short abstract:
Household food practices reinforce climate change effects. Examining their entanglements and impact, this research characterizes a chain of interlinking food practices in light of their systematic socio-material entanglements using visual ethnographic methods.
Paper long abstract:
Food practices account for a large portion of greenhouse gas emission and reinforce climate change effects. However, the resulting (food) waste and Co2 emissions are not driven by conscious intentions. Instead, everyday routines are entangled with social, ecological, and institutional systems that largely depend on the extraction of natural resources. This paper characterizes a chain of food practices, exploring which indications can be taken from Social Practice Theory to decrease the use of packaging, food waste, consumption of Co2 heavy products, and the use of fossil fuels for preparing food. Over an 8-month period, ethnographic fieldwork was conducted with 12 Dutch households and 5 food-related organizations, consisting of in-depth interviews, participatory observations and audio-visual work. Using a New Materialist lens, the study focuses on non-representational elements of food practices in both humans and non-humans. Food practices were coded and grouped from transcriptions for characterization, addressing simultaneously the systematic entanglement with institutional, ecological, and social systems. A primary finding was that resource intensive food practices relied heavily on (larger) spatial-material entanglements, for example the municipal waste system, as much as on specific ‘patterns’ of practices. Nonetheless, being resourceful or creative with food resulted in a less resource intensive pattern overall. Analysis of the household’s view on local interventions revealed that municipalities often don’t regard the affective component of interventions, possibly due to policies framework’s tendency to depersonalize ‘the consumer’. The article discusses the impact of these findings on socio-material and ecological aspects of the food chain, and on sustainable intervention design.