Outstanding Ethnographic Research Projects

The ethnographic photo-essays that students from Anthropology 380: Visual & Ethnographic Methods have submitted here are examples of how IWU anthropology students learn to conduct ethnographic research with visual media--in this case, still photography. One of the challenges students in this course face is deciphering the differences between photo-journalism, which they are more exposed to through glossy magazines such as National Geographic , and visual anthropology, a sub-field of anthropology that has its own distinct set of methods. One of the most important points of distinction is that while journalists are beholden to the "citizenry" at large, anthropologists are beholden to the community under study and their prime directive is to "do no harm" to them in any way. To uphold this modus operandi, students carefully select a community in which they are interested, spend time building rapport with members of that community, conduct ethnographic interviews, observe and participate in community events, and work with community members on all phases of the photo-essay: topic selection, image production, image selection. What results is a photo-essay produced through collaborative research methods that enhance the self-awareness of the community under study (attained through the process of visual self-representation) and a more enlightened view of the community by outsiders. In 2013, Anthropology 380 focused on the theme of immigration as part of the "Making Human Rights Real" curriculum cluster. For more information, please read the news story.