Graphic Ethnography: Tuning into the Melody (original) (raw)

Cultural Anthropology, 2022

Abstract

I love hearing and telling people’s stories. That is what has drawn me to research. I believe that for anthropology (or any discipline for that matter) to be effective in engaging diverse audiences in the research it produces, it needs both the data and the story to communicate in a way that moves people. For me this has meant seeing my ethnographic research beyond the "finished, refined products of fieldwork: book or ethnographic article" (Collins et al. 2017, 142), without forgoing the written text. Collaborating with digital illustrator Ben Thomas, I have embarked on a process I call "retrospective (re)presentation": using the visual to offer alternative modes of (re)presentation to the written ethnographic text (Rumsby 2020). Ben and I are illustrating ethnographic research which I have conducted into the modes of identity and belonging among children of Vietnamese descent who live in Cambodia as noncitizens. We are creating this "ethno-graphic" novel to illuminate the social realities underlying childhood statelessness and, importantly, to give the research back to participants in an accessible format. The focus of this article is to unveil the why and possibilities of using illustration.

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