Ethnography
Ethnography is the work of recording, describing, explaining, and interpreting a culture. A central purpose of ethnography is to understand a culture from its own point of view. Ethnography means learning about the culture from the culture.
Culture is the acquired knowledge that people use to interpret experience and to generate behavior. This cultural knowledge is like a recipe for organizing the necessary ingredients for a viable social life.
Moving beyond the descriptive and illustrative aspects of photography, the ethnographic photograph is used as a visual research tool. It is used to develop a selected (visual) description of the research community.
It provides a significant dimension for gaining cultural knowledge of the research community.
Source: A one-page notice, presumably announcing a class on “Ethnographic photography” at the Faculty of Communication and Media Studies at the Eastern Mediterranean University, Northern Cyprus. Image: Deutsche Kinemathek. dffb-Archiv.
[Suggested citation: Skip Norman, “Ethnography,” Rosa Mercedes 03/A (January 2021), www.harun-farocki-institut.org/en/2021/01/28/ethnography/]
January 28th, 2021 — Rosa Mercedes / 03 / A