A collaborative visual ethnography
Audio-visual training for the community
In order to facilitate the participation of the community in the generation of the audio-visual material, we provide the community with smartphones equipped with high resolution cameras.
Moreover, our filmmaker organises and provides the community with audio-visual training tailored to the specific objectives of the project. In addition to demonstrating the ‘nuts and bolts’ of producing audio-visual material, the training seeks to combine the audio-visual language with indigenous storytelling.
Field ethnography
Furthermore, we combine the material produced by the community with audio-visual material produced by the filmmaker during a field visit in Colombia. During this visit, we will accompany and film the community in their daily activities. This material will be complemented by a research participants-led video-diary series.
In order to generate knowledge about spiritual practices and how they strengthen the (self-)protection of the Nasa people, we conduct a visual ethnography of these practices. The Tate defines visual ethnography in the following way:
Ethnography is the study and interpretation of social organisations and cultures in everyday life. It is a research-based methodology, and when this research is conducted using photography, video or film, it is called visual ethnography.
Thanks to our filmmaker Nicolás Braguinsky Cascini’s expertise, we make extensive use of the camera, but we do so collaboratively. By “handing over the camera” to the community we intend to hand over control over the knowledge production process.
We actively try to avoid an extractive approach to research. The Project’s methodology, and particularly our use of the audio-visual language, is more concerned with how we know than with the mere collection of data.
Our visual ethnography thus seeks to be context-specific, reflexive and collaborative.