Society for Visual Anthropology

Roundtable

Multimodal Methods in Changing Climates: Do the Traditional Methods Still Apply?

Methods, Visual, Teaching

Organizer(s)

• 

  Jason Miller

  Assistant Professor
  Washburn University
• 

  Carylanna Taylor

  Anthropologist & Filmmaker
  First Encounter Productions

Chair(s)

• 

  Jason Miller

  Assistant Professor
  Washburn University
• 

  Carylanna Taylor

  Anthropologist & Filmmaker
  First Encounter Productions

Presenter(s)

• 

  Jason Miller

  Assistant Professor
  Washburn University
• 

  Carylanna Taylor

  Anthropologist & Filmmaker
  First Encounter Productions
• 

  Jennifer Syvertsen

  Assistant Professor
  University of California, Riverside
• 

  Dave Paulson

  PhD Candidate
  Temple University, Department of Anthropology
• 

  Jerome Crowder

  Associate Director, Associate Professor
  University of Texas Medical Branch
• RG

  Rachel George

  Whitman College
• 

  Matthew Durington

  Professor, Director of Community Engagement
  Towson University

Abstract: Anthropologists find themselves in a variety of rapidly changing climates with shifting political, social, and environmental realities. However, the standard anthropological methods toolkit of participant observation, semi-structured interviews and open-ended surveys we equip our students with has not changed much in almost 150 years. How useful is it as a strategy, then, in modern shifting and transnational realities? Anthropologists must grapple with a host of complex aspects of modernity including transnational and diasporic populations, the influence of emergent information and communication technologies, and a general sense of global precarity which has permeated many people’s lives. What is clear is that we must prepare new anthropologists in ethically and methodologically sound ways.

This roundtable starts with the basic question: Do the same cultural anthropological methodologies still meet the needs of anthropologists and the communities they work with? From there, we will explore how multimodal and community-based approaches to data collection and analysis could supplement and deepen traditional strategies. These strategies include such varied methods as digital storytelling, sensory ethnography, fictional ethnography, theater and improvisation, community-based research, graffiti walls, and many others. Drawing on their experience in filmmaking, community organizing, and ethnography, panelists and audience members will discuss ways in which innovative approaches to methodologies can aid in anthropological data collection and analysis regardless of the context. Come prepared to actively engage and share ideas with others on how anthropological methods can adapt to our changing climates.