Photoethnography and Street Photography
  - Karen Nakamura

Photoethnography can be considered both an applied methodology of an academic social science discipline (Visual Anthropology) as well as a form of artistic expression and social critique, akin to street photography or documentary photography.

My own interest in photoethnography comes from a merging of two sides of me that have previously been kept strictly apart - my vocation as an assistant professor of cultural anthropology and my avocation as a photographic artist. At times, these tensions operate synergistically, at other times they threaten to tear me apart.

Please enjoy the images that I've put here in this web gallery (you can select particular series by clicking on their links to the left). I hope you can see some of the tensions that I am working through. In their current iteration, they are much closer to the artistic and social critique elements of street photography than they are to the academic discipline of visual anthropology and photoethnography.

I haven't had time to update this gallery these days. For more recent photography and commentary about fieldwork in Japan, please see my blog, which is updated about once a week.

I welcome feedback and comments at:

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