spring 2021
SVF-3107 Visual Ethnography and Ways of Knowing - 10 ECTS
Admission requirements
May be taken as a single course. Application code 9371.
Reccommended previous knowledge:
For students of the Master's Programme in Visual Anthropology:
SVF-3101 Approaching social realities: Understanding other people's life-worlds
SVF-3102 Conveying social realities: Exploring audio-visual narrative strategies
For other students: A Bachelor's degree in a subject within the Social Sciences or Humanities.
Course content
Visual anthropology concerns both the use of (audio) visual material in research and the study of visual systems. The course will present and discuss various approaches to camera-based research, the use of visual material in processes of elicitation of knowledge and the study of already existing visible culture. These are approaches which imply both challenges and possibilities for the praxis of ethnographic research and dissemination.
A focus on the non verbal fields of knowledge can contribute to a broadening of the field of communication between informant, researcher and audience, and accordingly also to an enlargement of the scope of the social sciences. It also invites for reflections on:
- How artifacts constitute aspects of social systems;
- How the relationships between visual perception and cultural organization unfold through time;
- How cultural representations are embedded in/generate power relations; and
- The potential new ways of doing so called applied research and research dissemination.
Objectives of the course
Students who successfully complete this course should have achieved the following learning outcomes:
Knowledge
- have knowledge on how the visual can be studied (semiology)
- have knowledge on how visual systems can be used in the discovery of social processes.
- have knowledge of the state of the art within visual ethnography/visual anthropology
- have solid knowledge of how photographic and filmic representations are used in social scientific traditions
Skills
- be able to identify the culturally specific signs which are expressed in smells, tastes, sounds, objects, gestures.
- be able to reflect critically on the role of sensorial expressions in cultural and social analysis
- be conscious of conventions in photo and film
- be able to reflect critically on the role visual representations play in concrete research projects
General competence
- be able to demonstrate how knowledge of systems of sensorial signs favours successful dialogues in the process of research and dissemination
- be able to reflect critically of how visual representations articulate with text in social science representations.
Assessment
Course attendance is compulsory, i.e. only valid absences will be approved. A minimum participation of 80 % is required.
The home examination is to be based on a given topic. Students have one week to complete the examination and submit a paper of ca. 3500 words (10 pages). Marking is made according to a grading scale from A to F, where F is fail. A re-sit exam will be arranged for this course
- About the course
- Campus: Tromsø |
- ECTS: 10
- Course code: SVF-3107
- Responsible unit
- Institutt for samfunnsvitenskap
- Tidligere år og semester for dette emnet