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Accepted Paper

Weaving collective creative ethnographic practices into the anthropological study of institutions: challenges and experiences with multimodal ethnographic research  
Monika Weissensteiner Alice Sophie Sarcinelli (Université Paris Cité)

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Paper short abstract

This contribution interrogates to what extent creative multimodal and visual ethnographic practice can renew the anthropological study of institutions.

Paper long abstract

This contribution interrogates to what extent creative multimodal and visual ethnographic practice can renew the anthropological study of institutions. How may creative methods enhance our understanding of the relation between institutional actors and citizens engaged in processes of bureaucratic recognition? And what challenges do we encounter in including creative practices in our research practices, from data collection until dissemination ? In this contribution we call to transcend the classic boundary between art and science and interrogate the capacity of creative ethnographic practices to generate a different type of thinking and knowledge, thereby being more than a fieldwork method or a form of restitution as separate phases of research (Sarcinelli, Weissensteiner et al, 2022). Through a discussion of concrete experiences, insights and challenges, two aspects will be addressed.

How do creative ethnographies redefine traditional research methods in the anthropological study of institutions? How can creativity transform the dissemination of research outcomes?

Whereas this resonates with ongoing debates on the use of multimodality as a form of restitution as well as fieldwork method, less attention has been paid to creativity-based-translation into ‘description’ and analysis. As a main concrete example we will discuss the co-creation of an article that alternates text and visualisation, which deals with the recognition procedures of parental ties in lesbian family-households (Sarcinelli, Weissensteiner, 2024).

Panel P09
Visual Anthropology Transgressing Disciplinary Boundaries: Outsiders’ Challenges and Experiences with Multimodal and Visual Methods
  Session 1 Thursday 3 July, 2025, -