Paper Short Abstract:

This paper explores unwriting through audio-visual research on vulnerability, centering the body to rethink relationships and (dis)connections in ethnographic practice. By using film and soundscapes, I foreground vulnerability as a dynamic, embodied process, challenging textual hegemony and fixed narratives.

Paper Abstract:

This paper explores unwriting through my audio-visual research on vulnerability, centering the body to rethink relationships and (dis)connections in daily encounters, as well as ethnographic practice. Traditional academic writing often flattens the complexity of lived experience, imposing fixed narratives and categories that overlook the embodied, ambiguous, and relational dimensions of human existence. By adopting audio-visual methods—specifically film and soundscapes—I foreground vulnerability as a dynamic process that unfolds within spaces of tension, silence, and visibility.

Through filmic engagement and drawing on feminist discourses and existential anthropology, I center bodies, gestures, and emotions as key sites of knowledge, allowing vulnerability to emerge not as a fixed condition but as a dynamic and co-constructed reality. By capturing the subtleties of lived experience, I position myself as a vulnerable observer while acknowledging the limitations of transferring human experience into language.

Navigating my own personal and professional vulnerabilities, I confront the challenges of representing what often remains unspeakable. I argue that unwriting requires methods beyond text to capture the fluidity of relationships—those in-between states of connection and disconnection, strength and fragility, certainty and doubt.

This paper contributes to current discussions on ethnographic authority by advocating for multi-sensory approaches that challenge textual hegemony and create transformative spaces for representation. By repositioning the body as central to ethnographic practice, I propose vulnerability as both a methodological tool and a way of reimagining how we relate to our research subjects, our writing, and ourselves.