Contribution short abstract:

This project aims to co-create photographs of places and migrants posing, but moving, on it. A blur symbolizing and denouncing their existence in this space, in order to reverse globalized power relations by highlighting their "traces" bringing to light stories of lives and migratory journeys.

Contribution long abstract:

In “jungles” of Calais landscapes, local and migratory life stories intersect in a constant movement, which have already been photographed from all angles, especially from 2002 to 2016, during the mediatized period. This collaborative anthropo-photographic project, called "migrant lifelines", offers a tool to conduct research with (and not on) migrants, about their perception of, and place in the landscapes. These persons are constantly on the move, traveling in the streets, on trains, with a plastic bag in hand, as if about to leave, made invisible by anti-migrant policies. This project aims to co-create a series of photographs of selected places and construct a photography with the migrant posing, but moving, on it. A blur symbolizing and denouncing their existence in this space, in order to reverse globalized power relations by highlighting their "traces" bringing to light stories of lives and migratory journeys.

Following 15 persons, each one day, in their lives and places will also allow to collect information on their lives and write their story alongside of the collaborative exhibition. The project, taking place from January to December 2025, can therefore be presented halfway through and above all discussed and questioned during the conference, in order to work on methodological, epistemological and heuristic issues. How the migrants will react to, and welcome this project? Will they make it their own? How to make a research collaborative when it is already thought and constructed by the researcher on her own?

Contribution short abstract:

My anthropological research methodology draws heavily on my photographic work, both within and beyond museums in Europe and Aotearoa New Zealand, as an alternative storytelling tool in collaboration with Māori experts, museum and archive professionals, and communities.

Contribution long abstract:

For many years, Māori specialists across Aotearoa New Zealand have sought greater access to information about taonga (Māori ancestral treasures) held in museums worldwide. Over the past 13 years, I have worked closely with Māori experts, as well as museum and archive professionals in Europe and Aotearoa New Zealand to develop an anthropological methodology that addresses these needs. Grounded in ‘Kia āta titiro, kia āta whakarongo ki ngā taonga: carefully looking at and listening to taonga’, this approach draws extensively on my photographic work, both within and beyond museum’s walls, as an alternative means of storytelling and collaborative work. While five percent of these images are accessible on my professional Instagram account, most are shared in intimate settings such as wānanga (learning session with a small group of people), one-on-one meetings, conferences, and publications. This paper illustrates how ‘unwriting with photography’ helps connect with people, collaborate in research, co-write, and transmit knowledge about the Māori art of taonga across time — past, present, and future — and space. It also demonstrates how Kia Āta Titiro! — Looking carefully and producing this body of photographic and analytic work — is rooted in the invaluable guidance and support of colleagues and friends. Rather than seeking definitive answers, thanks to this methodology, I now observe, listen carefully, and embark on extensive journeys, immersing myself and sharing mātauranga (knowledge) about the times, people and places where taonga originated or have since travelled to.

Contribution short abstract:

In these dark times Ukrainian women visual artists track as much as they trace a history of ecocide in progress since the beginning of the Russian imperialist war. Among them, three photographers in particular invited me to approach differently the term "ecofeminism".

Contribution long abstract:

They are about ten Ukrainian women visual artists to be recognized as those who reinvent the link between the various forms of life, the relationships between humans and non-humans, the anthropomorphism between the woman's body and the Earth... and the way in which war turns everything upside down, ravages, violates, crushes to the point of extreme situations. Thus, they track as much as they trace a history of ecocide in progress since the beginning of the Russian imperialist war. Among them, three photographers in particular, invited me to approach differently the term that has become so convenient and so fashionable of "ecofeminism". What can be described as subjective ecological commitments open up to a distribution of the sensible that renders obsolete any prefabricated definition to be applied to a reality that in this way would ultimately continue to escape us. Together, with Yana Kononova, Xeniia Petrovska, Oleksandra Zborovska, as we have built up a certain sisterhood since 2022, we have embarked on a research-creation project on the position of women photographers in the face of ecocide. One of our goals is to revisit visual anthropology by engaging with the works and their narratives, insofar as they open up to speculative practices that tell the story of historical processes, a transnational dialogue with subaltern that leads to reconsider gender and decoloniality, and a fresh look at images of borderline situations that broach the notion of uncanny.

Contribution short abstract:

Based on ethnographic research in Siena, Italy, this study combines photography and ethnography to explore migrant women's bodies and experiences, liberating their narratives through collaborative, dialogic methods.

Contribution long abstract:

Based on an ethnographic research on the politics of representation and the perception of the body of migrant women living in the province of Siena, Italy, this intervention focuses on their experiences and the visual narratives that surround them. It explores the combined use of photography and ethnography as tools for new collaborative research methods. The aim is to offer a nuanced perspective on the subject of the body and the experiences of migrant women, revealing the ways in which their identities are shaped by cultural, social and political contexts, while avoiding the reduction of ethnography to a simple 'data extraction process' (Ingold 2014). By integrating photography into the ethnographic process, this research seeks to free migrant women's stories from stereotypes tied to their migratory backgrounds and instead present them as women telling their own stories.

Tracing my training and research in photography and anthropology, I emphasize the integrated use of visual and ethnographic representations as tools for interaction and co-construction of meaning. From this perspective, photography becomes a conversational practice (Gunthert 2015) in which images initiate and sustain meaningful dialogues with interlocutors.

This approach foregrounds the relational and dynamic nature of knowledge production, focusing on "the production of knowledge and ways of knowing rather than ... the collection of data" (Pink 2013, 35). It values collaborative engagement in which meaning emerges through shared experience and ongoing dialogue, creating a deeper, contextualized, including visual, understanding of the subjects involved.

Contribution short abstract:

Since 2012, the ZONE 54 project has explored ethnographic practices with Nancy's "zonards". Collaborative methods redefined researcher-participant dynamics. This participatory approach challenges traditional hierarchies, fostering shared authority and democratic ethnography.

Contribution long abstract:

Since 2012, an ethnographic work has been carried out with the ‘zonards’ of Nancy as part of the production of the photographic and sound documentary ZONE 54. This research, built around visual and collaborative practices, is based on methods designed to transform the classic dynamics of ethnography and to reflect on a sharing of ethnographic and photographic authority.

Among these methods, the presentation of all the photographs to the interlocutors played a key role. This enabled us to gather their reactions, comments and reinterpretations, thereby enriching mutual understanding. In addition, introducing the participants to photography created an active co-creation dynamic, enabling them to become agent in the construction of the visual discourse. Finally, the organisation of collaboratives exhibitions opened up spaces for public discussion, while giving equal visibility to their voices and gazes.

These practices took time and involved many stages of dialogue, but they enabled the traditional hierarchies between researcher and interlocutors to be overcome. This collaborative process thus questions the boundaries of self-reflexivity and intersubjectivity in visual anthropology, and opens up avenues for re-evaluating the epistemology of research. These participatory methods redefine the role of actors and images in the production of anthropological knowledge, contributing to a more shared and democratic ethnography.

This paper will explore the challenges of these methods, their implementation and their impact on the creation of shared and polyphonic visual narratives.

Contribution short abstract:

The Bissa people in Burkina Faso received the pictures that I sent them recently. A thousand photographs (1982-1996). Rediscovering these pictures took me back to my years as a student in Paris in the 80’s and 90’s. At that time I was under the influence of Jean Rouch as a visual anthropologist.

Contribution long abstract:

I lived among the Bissa people of Burkina Faso for several years between 1982 and 1996. I published articles and anthropological books about this region. I recently rediscovered my collection of black and white negatives, I digitalized a thousand of these photographs. My friends in the Bissa villages identified all the people in the photographs, and gave me their names. I produced several albums that they received.

Using the albums, the villagers emailed me notes outlining the differences comparing the photographs then and today.

On my side, these pictures took me back to my years as a student in Paris in the 80’s and 90’s. At that time, I was a student of Jean Rouch for visual anthropology. I also followed the seminars of Michel Izard, my thesis director, and many other anthropologists gave me advice, like Françoise Heritier and Maurice Godelier. I also owe a lot to Dan Sperber for my post-doctorate in cognitive sciences with the Fyssen Foundation. My research was about the sacred lake of the Bissa’s, before it was drowned by the Bagre dam.

In conclusion, this photographic retrospective with the Bissa group in Burkina Faso is inspired by years of visual anthropology, and by the academic anthropology in France at that time.

Contribution short abstract:

Dans cette thèse de sociologie, une série photographique fictionnelle est mobilisée par photo élicitation lors d'entretiens menés auprès d'artistes et scientifiques ayant participé à des résidences d'artistes en laboratoires de sciences. Cette narration visuelle réinterroge l'écriture ethnographique

Contribution long abstract:

Ma thèse de sociologie porte sur les effets produits par les collaborations établies entre artistes et scientifiques, dans le cadre de résidences d’artistes accueillies en laboratoires de sciences, sur les pratiques artistiques et scientifiques contemporaines. Elle examine les résidences en termes d’« actants » (Latour et Wooglar, 2006) et d’expériences (Dewey, 2010). Leur suivi ethnographique a donc été envisagé. Entretiens (34), observations (40) et images (689) recueillis sur le terrain dévoilent un processus résidentiel linéaire (temps) et ancré (espace). Or, dans les observations et échanges informels recueillis auprès des enquêtés, celui-ci se morcelle en plusieurs espace-temps.

J’ai donc expérimenté la création d’une série photographique (6 images), selon une démarche en partie inspirée par le « design-fiction » (Dunne et Raby, 2013). Elle aligne les étapes observées lors des résidences, de sorte à représenter une résidence artistique idéalement linéaire et ancrée au sein du laboratoire. Soumise par photo elicitation interview (Harper, 2002) aux artistes et scientifiques lors de retours d’expérience en résidence, elle propose une narration scientifique visuelle permettant de déterminer si oui ou non, cette série photo dépeint une totale fiction.

Il en résulte que les étapes représentées dans la série reflètent bien l’expérience de résidence des enquêtés. Mais ceux-ci révèlent aussi un processus de résidence multi-situé, morcelé en différentes temporalités. Cette narration visuelle se présente donc comme outil participatif dans la co-construction, l’écriture et la transmissions des savoirs, questionnant, finalement, les manières de recueillir et restituer les données d’une ethnographique repensée par la fiction.

Contribution short abstract:

I will present some audio-visual attempts I proposed during my doctoral fieldwork in anthropology on blood collected for therapeutic purposes, so that the actors talk about it, their practices and the emotions experienced, but also to propose another format of restitution of the research.

Contribution long abstract:

For this paper, I will present a few audio-visual attempts prepared during my thesis in anthropology on blood collected for therapeutic purposes in Belgium. Elaborating a social biography (Kopytoff 1986) of blood, I followed it throughout the stages it goes through between donation and transfusion. The aim was to understand the work of blood throughout the transfusion chain, for the different actors who contribute to it often without knowing each other. Through the concept of operating chain (Leroi-Gourhan 1964) and autoscopy, I decided to develop visual supports based on my ethnographic materials.

Using photography, video or audio recordings, I sometimes composed photo and video editing that I submitted to certain key actors to add their comments to it. Indeed, initially, I had noticed that it was not always easy for the different actors to deliver their point of view on blood or their practices. If I had used photography as a tool for keeping a record of what I saw in the field, I also wanted to used it as a "talk starter" to generate other materials, or more if possible. We'll discuss the idea that this created device could be a useful way to lead research on uncanny objects, but also to collaborate with the participants and open the possibility for people to contradict, correct our interpretation and co-create a more complex understanding of our research objects.