AAA panel: CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS: A ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION ON VISUAL ETHICS

Chair: Terence Wright, University of Ulster, UK.

This roundtable discussion, organised on behalf of the Society for Visual Anthropology’s (SVA) Ethics Committee, seeks to continue the SVA’s tradition of nurturing debate and critical reflection on the ethics of anthropological imaging.

The theme of this year’s roundtable focuses on visual ethnography in situations of conflict. For the purposes of the discussion ‘conflict’ may be defined loosely - as an intense rivalry between groups or as open warfare. We aim to investigate the responsibility of photographers, filmmakers, ethnographers to present a ‘balanced’ representation of the conflict. Is there an obligation to present points of view from both sides? Or does this depend on the nature of the conflict itself? For example, while one might consider it important to give accounts from both Republican and Loyalist perspectives in the Northern Ireland conflict, it may not be considered so important where repression appears quite obvious, as in the struggle for democracy in Burma/Myanmar. In such instances, is it necessary for the ethnographer to state his/her own position with regard to the conflict? Or remain aloof, aiming for a standpoint of ‘objective’ research and reporting? Or do we rely on the anthropologist to provide the ‘alternative voice’? How do we avoid, or come to terms with, imposing our own ethical or cultural values on such situations? We might also consider some of the conflicts that the anthropologist may encounter. What are the dangers of ‘embedded ethnography’: getting assistance from (or working with) the police, military, NGOs or other interest groups who might be operating to agendas that conflict with those of the ethnographer? Furthermore, do conflicts arise out of the photographic or the filmmaking process itself? The formal qualities of the medium can be used to slant the argument to favour one side over another. What are the dangers of this occurring subconsciously on the part of the ethnographer?

Taken together, the intent of this roundtable is to give practitioners an opportunity to discuss the ethical implications of in-progress or recently-completed visual research, and to draw upon the collective input of roundtable attendees to plan for or rethink our visual responsibilities.

Deadline:

For those interested in participating, please provide a brief description (max. 150 words) of the particular scenario or issue you wish to contribute to this year’s discussion as soon as possible, and by 5 April at the latest. Decisions will be made by 10 April, and contributors will need to register for the conference via the AAA’s web-based system by 15 April. All correspondence should be sent to Terence Wright: t.wright@ulster.ac.uk.

The roundtable will take the form of a series of brief, 10-minute presentations by participants, culminating in an extended period of group discussion and debate.

Please note: As per AAA participation rules, presenting as part of a roundtable counts as a person’s one “major” role, the same as giving a paper or poster.

AAA Panel Organizers:
Jerome Crowder, PhD, Asst. Professor, Institute for the Medical Humanities, U. Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas
Erica Fletcher, Graduate Student, Institute for the Medical Humanities, U. Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas
Discussant: TBA

DEADLINE for SUBMISSON: March 12, 2013

Representations of illness and human embodiment are experiencing a profound technological change owing to the rapid advancement of new biotechnologies and vanguard treatment techniques that offer the promise of miracle cures, enhanced anatomies, increased longevity, and a general sense of well?being. Such experiences from the patient’s point of view have traditionally been recorded as illness narratives in the form of printed media, as taken from ethnography or autobiography. Yet given the proliferation of the Internet, anyone can post a blog, image, audio or video account of their illness journey and anonymously engage with the world. With the emergence of new media, from websites, online videos, and blogs, to immersive realities, electronic texts, and digital music, illness narratives have become both virtual and transmedial, presenting a curious dual nature that is at once generative and destructive. We argue that while these “transmedial narratives” are generative, in that they may function as a creative means for expressing and sometimes transcending one’s health tribulations, they can also simultaneously be destructive, prohibitive and mimetic, in that they can reify stereotypes of illness or engage look?alike sites, which dilute the discourse.

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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS for AAA PANEL ON EXPERIMENTAL ETHNOGRAPHIC FILMMAKING AND PHOTOGRAPHY

Anthropologists as Filmmakers and Photographers: Experimental Trends in Visual Anthropology and Visual Ethnography

Organizer/Chairperson: Andrea Heckman

Camera. Lights. Action. Not an academic sound to our ears? Using cameras for ethnographic field notes and analysis is a methodology utilized by visual anthropologists as long ago as Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson when they collected large quantities of visual data on Balinese culture and practices. In 1987, the Society for Visual Anthropology was created to encourage the use of photography, films, video, and multi-media as valuable, legitimate methods for fieldwork, not limited as only illustrations for papers. While some anthropologists have not acknowledged visual media as a viable methodological approach, many other ethnographers have recognized the communicative power of visual representation for collecting data, analysis, and accurate presentation of and by those studied.

This panel will present new experimental approaches using film and photography for ethnographic research, analysis, and conclusions including innovations in the formats of the photo essay and documentary film work. The presentations will include global ethnographies improved upon by video clips, digital photography, and social media, and reflexive processual commentary by the researchers. Controversies will be investigated concerning the nature of research questions, interview techniques, cultural intrusion, and the social ethics of creating visual media, and consideration of the final research products, which are then transferred from one culture to inform another. The presentations will be followed by discussion in an interactive format.

If you are interested in participating in this panel for 2013 AAA in Chicago contact Andrea Heckman ASAP and submit a 250-word abstract. Presenters must be AAA members.  Participation will be limited to five presentations.

Andreaheckman333@gmail.com

The 2013 annual Visual Research Conference of the Society for Visual Anthropology will begin with an informal no-host dinner open to all SVA members on Monday evening November 18th followed by interactive presentations on Tuesday November 19th and Wednesday November 20th at the beginning of the 112th American Anthropology Association meetings in Chicago. These presentations are scheduled for about 45 minutes and are formatted to allow for viewing of visual material, as well as several question and answer periods during each presentation, thus facilitating much lively discussion. Each year this conference provides visual anthropologists a unique opportunity to meet and interact with others who do anthropological and anthropologically related research on visual signification, visual communication, and visual forms of representation. We invite all SVA members, from graduate students to retired professors, to submit proposals and attend the conference.

THE 2013 DEADLINE FOR VISUAL RESEARCH CONFERENCE SUBMISSIONS IS MIDNIGHT MARCH 31, 2013, GUAM TIME.

The SVA welcomes paper and poster session proposals for consideration at this year’s Annual Meeting in Chicago(November 20-24, 2013). The theme for the meeting is “Future Publics, Current Engagements,” which provides a richcontext for exploring the innovative and exciting work conducted under the broad rubric of visual anthropology. Lastyear, SVA sponsored sessions explored such diverse topics as public art, visual ethics, photography of the unsettling, sensing culture, visualizing history, aesthetic production, digital storytelling and visualizing the technological disjoint in communities.

For the 2013 Annual Meeting, the SVA programming committee consists of:

Jennifer Wolowic (jwolowic@gmail.com)

Fiona P. McDonald (fionamcdonald5@yahoo.ca)

Both Jennifer and Fiona are more than happy to work with you on your paper, poster, or roundtable sessions. We’rehappy to assist session organizers with the structuring of their proposals. The SVA encourages innovative formats, including poster sessions, extended screening of visual materials, and fostering more dynamic discussion periods.

Here is a breakdown of upcoming deadlines and the appropriate contacts for each.

Paper/Poster/Roundtable Sessions – submit through the AAA website

SVA Section Invited Session Proposals – due March 15, 2013 online

All Invited Session Proposals (paper or poster sessions) must include a session abstract of up to 500 words and information for all participants (including individual abstracts and any technical needs for your session). Submission will be through the AAA website. We highly encourage anyone planning to submit an invited session proposal to contact us ASAP, ideally by March 1. Decisions will be announced in early April.

SVA Sponsored Session Proposals – due April 15, 2013 online

All sponsored session proposals must be submitted online by April 15, 2013. This includes all paper and poster sessions,roundtable proposals, and individual paper/poster submissions. Submissions must include a 500-word abstract, as well as individual abstracts for each participant (as necessary). Participants must abide by the AAA rules regarding roles, registration, and fees.

Installations – due April 15, 2013 online through the AAA programming committee

Installations (a remix and rebirth of “InnoVents” and “Salons” introduced to the AAA Annual Meetings program in recent years) invite anthropological knowledge off the beaten path of the written conference paper. Presenters may propose performances, recitals, conversations, author-meets-critic roundtables, salon reading workshops, oral history recording sessions and other alternative, creative forms of intellectual expression for consideration. Selected Installations will be curated for off-site exhibition and tied to the official AAA conference program. Installations are meant to disrupt who and what we tend to see at the Annual Meetings, helping attendees encounter new people and to do different kinds of things at the intersections of anthropological arts, sciences, and cultural expression.

If you have an idea for an Installation you would like to offer that might be on interest to the SVA, please contactJennifer and Fiona ASAP to discuss the possibilities!

SVA Film, Video, and Interactive Media Festival Submissions –April 15, 2013

Contact: Harjant Gill (hgill@towson.edu)

Karen Nakamura (Karen.Nakamura@yale.edu)

Jenny Chio (Jenny.Chio@emory.edu)

The SVA Film, Video, and Interactive Media Festival encourage the submission of short works (under 15 minutes), full-length ethnographic films, and interactive media. Awards will be given to the best works in a number of categories,including student films and short films. The submission deadline is April 15, 2013, with early-bird discounts for submissions sent before March 1, 2013. Festival Submissions open February 1, 2013. Please check the SVA website for complete details (including information on where to send your previews).

Submit films via Withoutabox.com (WAB):

https://www.withoutabox.com/03film/03t_fin/03t_fin_fest_01over.php?festival_id=10082

SVA Visual Research Conference Submissions -March 2013 (due date TBA)

Contacts: Tom Blakely (tdblakely@aol.com and copy to tdb5@psu.edu)

Andrea Heckman (andreaheckman@earthlink.net)

Jerome Crowder (jecrowde@utmb.edu)

The SVA Visual Research Conference provides a collegial environment for the presentation of works-in-progress, as well as research findings. Sessions are allotted approximately forty-five minutes for several scheduled presentations and discussions, thus facilitating real engagement between the audience and the researcher(s). The Visual Research Conference will take place November 17- 19, 2013.

Check the SVA website for updates regarding the SVA Film, Video, and Interactive Media FestivalSubmissions and SVA Visual Research Conference Submissions

110th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting

November 13-18, 2012 
San Francisco, California

Schedule of Events

Download the pdf: SVA-related events program

2012 Visual Research Conference

Download the program as a pdf: 2012-visual-research-conference-program

Download the Abstracts as a pdf: visualresearchconference2012abstracts

2012 Film and Media Festival

Download the pdf: 2012 SVA Film and Media Festival Program

Download the pdf: 2012 SVA Film and Media Festival Program

Contact: Craig Campbell or Stephanie Takaragawa
Phone: Craig (512) 226-3972
E-mail: ethnographicterminalia@gmail.com
Website: www.ethnographicterminalia.org
ETHNOGRAPHIC TERMINALIA 2012: SAN FRANCISCO
Exhibition & Opening Reception

Audible observatories are points of sensory convergence.  They are nodes where worlds perceived through the senses intersect and begin the labor of transforming independent events into knowable and meaningful claims. They speak and they are spoken to.

Ethnographic Terminalia is a curatorial collective that hosts an annual exhibition of international artists and researchers working at the intersection of art and anthropology. In November 2012, the Ethnographic Terminalia Curatorial Collective welcomes visitors to the Audible Observatories exhibition. This year’s show is organized in collaboration with Thor Anderson and is scheduled to coincide with the 111th annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association (AAA).

Ethnographic Terminalia brings anthropologists and artists together in the gallery space to investigate the borders and blurrings of contemporary art practice and alternative modes of cultural inquiry and representation.  Ethnographic Terminalia is an exploration of what it means to exhibit anthropology - particularly in some of its less traditional forms - in proximity to and conversation with contemporary art practices.

Now in its fourth year (following Montréal, New Orleans, and Philadelphia), Ethnographic Terminalia represents an international array of creative material, conceptual, and new media engagements where anthropology and art intersect. For Ethnographic Terminalia 2012: Audible Observatories the curators have selected over twenty five artists and cultural researchers including: Steve Feld, John Wynne, Rupert Cox & Angus Carlyle, and Roxanne Varzi.

Innovent at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, CA. Saturday, Nov. 17, 11:00am to 1:00pm

A digital story is a short, first person video-narrative created by combining recorded voice, still and moving images, and music or other sounds in a digital media product. Since 1998 the Center for Digital Storytelling in Berkeley, California, has been giving digital storytelling methods workshops aimed at helping K-12 teachers integrate the use of digital storytelling assignments into their classes. In large part due to the tireless efforts of the Center, and aided by a growing belief that such projects are better suited than traditional paper assignments for developing active learning styles needed for participation in the information age, digital storytelling projects are being increasingly assigned at K-12 education institutions throughout the U.S. More recently, such assignments have been finding their way onto syllabi of courses given at the country’s colleges and universities, where digital storytelling is increasingly being seen as a useful tool for the facilitation of engaged learning. Taking advantage of the Center for Digital Storytelling’s proximity to the site of the 2012 Annual Meeting, this Innovent will provide an opportunity to get acquainted with a media form and process that is rife with potential for anthropological pedagogy and practice. Innovent attendees will gather at the Dance Mission Theater, near the 24th St. Bart Station, where the Director of the Center for Digital Storytelling, Joe Lambert, will provide an introduction to digital storytelling before leading the group on a 45-minute photo walk and story session through the murals of the Mission District. The tour will end up at Galeria de la Raza or Brava Theater at the other end of 24^th, where Joe will facilitate a 1-hour session of making a short movie in a hurry (doing a short writing prompt, a brief story circle, and then a five photo edit with attendees own iPhone [or other ios device] or 2012 Android Phone or Tablet). Not everyone would have to participation in the project making process, but could benefit from following along. This event is a fantastic opportunity to get out and get acquainted with the unique environs of the 2012 Annual Meeting location while learning practical skills that can be utilized in anthropology teaching and research practice. Participation in the Innovent costs $50 per person.

To sign up for this event go to the American Anthropological Association’s registration page at https://avectra.aaanet.org/eweb/DynamicPage.aspx?Site=AAAWeb&WebKey=ced2aab5-ccd7-4f28-bd95-01edee542f5eand click on “Add Workshops/Events” in the left-hand column to log in.

Any questions about this Innovent should be e-mailed to Aaron Thornburg ataaron.thornburg@duke.edu.

Ethnographic Terminalia seeks submissions for Audible Observatories, an exhibition to be held in San Francisco in November 2012. Artist-researchers, collaborators, anthropologists and other artistically inclined scholars are encouraged to submit their proposals prior to July 15, 2012.

Audible Observatories makes a playful connection between research-based art and place-bound exhibition in order to animate a curatorial vision that foregrounds audio-centric works within a broader rubric of site-specificity. We conceptualize the audible observatory as either a mobile or a stationary site of perception that is sensible to others just as it is a place from which sensing the world happens. Audible observatories are points of sensory convergence. They are nodes where worlds perceived through the senses intersect and begin the labour of transforming independent events into knowable and meaningful claims. They speak and they are spoken to.

Audible Observatories will be a distributed public event in San Francisco with an amalgam of location specific points and zones of exhibition. We are looking for research-based audio focused works to exhibit. These might include digital media, image, and sound files, websites and other interactive media, video works where audio figures prominently. Sculptural and other works will also be considered. In some cases we may be able to support installation. As in past shows, we will work with our exhibitors (if necessary) to develop installations and short statements about their work which point to larger interpretive frameworks.

This project ties in with and is supported by the meetings of the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Visual Anthropology. A round table discussion featuring Steve Feld, John Wynne, Angus Carlyle, and Rupert Cox has been organized and will be taking place during the course of this event. We also expect to be exhibiting work by these artists.

Ethnographic Terminalia is an initiative designed to celebrate borders without necessarily exalting them. Now in its fourth year of exhibition, it is meant to be a playful engagement with reflexivity and positionality; it seeks to ask what lies beyond and what lies within disciplinary territories. Ethnographic Terminalia is an exploration of what means to exhibit anthropology - particularly in some of its less traditional forms - in proximity to and conversation with contemporary art practices.

Go to the Call for Submissions Form

The terminus is the end, the boundary, and the border.
It is also a beginning, its own place, a site of experience and encounter.

Contact: ethnographicterminalia@gmail.com
http://www.ethnographicterminalia.org

Call for Papers

American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, November 2012

Panel Title: “Mediating Numbers: Representations of Data, Measurement, and Assessment Across Borders”

Organizers: Damien Stankiewicz (Temple University) and Rebecca Howes-Mischel (New York University)

Numbers are today a ubiquitous medium for the representation of global realities, likely because they are understood to move across boundaries and borders in stable and “objectively” verifiable ways (Ong and Collier 2005). They seem able to “translate” the messiness of qualitative, local, and individual events into quantitative, mobile, and comparable measures. Economic indices; UN data on refugees; comparisons of radiation in Japan and Chernobyl; households with internet; average age of retirement; “happiness scales”; rankings of access to health care; child mortality-these are the numbers that order communities, nations and a world across mass media, governmental institutions, and people’s everyday lives.

This panel, about the mediation of numbers and the numbers of media, seeks to set science studies and media studies into generative conversation: How can approaches developed by anthropologists of law, science, and technology help us to understand media and mediation as claims about “objectivity”; reciprocally, how can the anthropology of media and mediation contribute to our understanding of quantitative assessments and data as narrative and representational? Working across these subdisciplines, we mean to ask both: what kind of media are numbers/data/statistics? And, how do media convey data?

In pursuing these parallel questions, this panel means to examine how quantitative and statistical measurements and assessments move across the borders and boundaries of different kinds of global scales, and how they help us to understand the uses and forms of numbers that travel. Data and statistics are powerful technologies of assessment and evaluation understood to map onto material realities that are abstract and thus, transcend culture-yet how do numbers and measurements, as these are generated by and for institutions and governments, change or take different forms as they move across and through national borders and boundaries? In what ways do they remain bordered or beholden to the national and local contexts in which they were generated? How do the social actors who produce these data, statistics, and indices understand them, like media, to be intended for particular “readings” or receptions? How are these numbers and data therefore anticipatory and performative? We mean to excavate the social relations and processes of production embedded in these mobile and mobilized data.

This panel hopes to bring together innovative scholars working across a variety of geographic regions who would like to think further about the intersection of measurement and mediation. Empirical objects might include television ratings; epidemiological statistics; corruption indices; indicators of economic behavior; or demands on digital bandwidth, inasmuch as these reveal the (in)stability, malleability, and performativity of numbers that mediate.

If you are interested in participating in this panel, please send an abstract of 250 words to Damien Stankiewicz at damien@temple.edu and/or Rebecca Howes-Mischel at rhm222@nyu.edu by April 1st.