Results tagged “fieldwork” from Photoethnography.com Blog

We talked in my Ethnographic Filmmaking class yesterday about field journals. I'm particular to keeping paper journals (which I scan and PDF) but students had some recommendations for online journaling software:

Mac:

• http://journler.com/
  
• OmniOutliner
  

PC:

• WhizFolders
  

Online:

• Evernote
  

I should mention that some of my grad students have also experimented with using blogging software set to a privacy mode to blog their fieldnotes.

I also posted an older (but much more extensive) list a while ago: http://www.photoethnography.com/blog/archives/2007/01/fieldnotes-soft.html

A new class of software could solve some of the confidentiality concerns that ethnographers encounter when taking photos of participants -- an issue that I recently pondered.

I conducted a brief stint of fieldwork in Tokyo over the summer and wanted to take photos of my participants using their keitai (cell phones) and/or pasocon (personal computers). One of the issues I "faced," however, was maintaining their confidentiality while taking pictures that were also aesthetically pleasing. This meant that I gravitated towards taking pictures of them while wearing a mask (in a subtle nod to Mishima's Confessions of a Mask) instead of blurring their faces out.

However, there is an interesting and exciting piece of software that can swap out the faces that appear in photographs. The impetus behind the software is to protect the privacy of individuals that are captured in public photographs, such as those that appear on Google Street View.

Unfortunately, it doesn't exist commercially, yet, but it does present an interesting solution to a problem as such.

(Via Boing Boing.)

I recently wrote a short article for the Anthropology News titled: A Case against Giving Informants Cameras and Coming Back Weeks Later (. Vol. 49, No. 2: 20). Here is a snippet to whet your appetite:

A Case Against Giving Informants Cameras and Coming Back Weeks Later
By Karen Nakamura (Yale U)

Giving informants cameras and asking them to take photographs of their environment is a growing trend in anthropology. The resulting photos are later displayed, analyzed or exhibited as examples of a particularly internal, private or emic view of the world. Students love this technique, which is inexpensive and initially appears to be risk-free, with all of the hallmarks of reflexive anthropology. If not done carefully, however, it can be problematic both ethically and methodologically.

.....

For those who choose to do photoethnographic work that involves providing informants with cameras or video equipment, it is essential to first critically examine the ethical and methodological implications of a project. The anthropologist must consider both the potential harms and benefits that a project might pose for an informant. Possible ways to address these concerns include giving informants high quality photographic equipment (to keep) as well as technical training, so that in the future they can use their new tools and skills for their own purposes, to address their own needs. Informants working for an anthropologists (i.e. completing assigned tasks) should be paid as field assistants. Prior to using an image an anthropologist should receive permission to do so from both the photographer and any people that appear in the photograph. Finally, photography should supplement, not replace, long-term fieldwork–it is time and labor intensive, but ultimately necessary for interpreting and contextualizing visual images from the field.

You can read the rest at the full text PDF.

Comments, criticism, and feedback on this article are more than welcome -- either here or by e-mail.