ON THE USE OF VISUAL ETHNOGRAPHIC METHODS IN FIELD AND INFORMAL SETTINGS

The lived experiences and constructed realities of learners and teachers in field settings are multidimensional and layered in nature. Most geoscience educators applying ethnographic methods rely heavily upon interviews and observation to generate emergent themes. The introduction of a visual method in combination with others allows for an increasingly holistic picture to emerge.

Photographic techniques are commonly employed in visual ethnography. In some cases, participants are given cameras to record images that are significant and meaningful to them as they go about their tasks. By design, their camera use is largely unstructured and unsupervised. In other cases, participants are asked to react to a photo essay assembled by the researcher; the participants do not generate the photographs. This latter activity is more structured, but counter-intuitively, it has far greater potential to generate deep, highly unpredictable, but exceedingly useful data. The key to generating such data is in the composure of the images, the juxtaposition of incongruous elements and the order of presentation.

Data and emergent themes from both activity styles are presented, along with a discussion of the advantages, limitations and “lessons learned” from each. Student camera use data are from a field setting, and photo essay data are from a non-field-based informal setting.