Sarah Pink

“Doing Visual Ethnography”

A tight definition of reflexivity
Clear articulation of process supported by contemporary theory
Articulation of the “what” to expand beyond data collection and observable behavior

I’m citing the first edition here due to an emotional attachment to the book I bought in undergrad. It’s so heavily marked up over 25 years I can’t upgrade. Please forgive.

Design owns a massive unpaid debt to Anthropology for articulating the “how” of qualitative data collection. One of the costs that results from a designer’s laser focus on the “how” is the missed opportunity to understand where the how came from. It was a terrifically interesting and hard won revolution in theory and practice that covers all of cultural anthropology, and it’s especially accessible if traced through the practice of visual anthropology. I’m such a fan of Sarah Pink’s writing because of how well she summarizes dense, nuanced, sprawling concepts, and how she really turns on those capabilities when she writes about her own field. This is what makes the introduction to this text truly worth a designers’ time.

The ubiquity of the word empathy in user centered research came after some anthropologists forced a 180° turn against the status quo practice in the field to “distance, objective and generalize” (3). The introduction to this edition is a time capsule of that greater moment in anthropology. It also gets into the details about the effort it took to build a new literature that supports the use of images in knowledge creation. At that time the proposition of something other than a formulaic text was filling a gap in the literature. Reading this is still like an oasis in a sad and upsetting desert of exploitation and extractive knowledge transitions. It’s a delicious read.

You may not need to get into the whole story of who wrote what and when, but she has the receipts about how the literature evolved over time. It’s like an anthropology of anthropology. If you find strategic design to be meta and are able to summon a laugh in moments when the meta is right there in your face, you’ll enjoy that bit.

You can probably tell from the way I built this website that I really appreciate intellectual generosity, and the last bit of the intro to this edition is really generous. The common thread of studying material culture that connects media studies and all the variety of work that we used to call cultural studies, the emerging material trends in sociology and straight up photographers, she honors each of these disciplines with clear articulation of their strengths and struggles. That’s the foundation of my MFA training in a program called transdisicplinary design, so I’m here for it.

My hope is that you take the time to read this intro, even if you skip the bits that you can’t follow. You’ll learn so much about the debt design owes to anthropology, even if it’s not the explicit point of the book introduction.

All that said, the intro isn’t the best part of the book, it’s just one of the best parts of this book. I’ve relied on her definition of reflexivity for my whole design career, and she covers that in chapter 1.

I used to be surprised when designers didn’t know what reflexivity was, and I’ve given that up in favor of being prepared to explain it to anyone who will listen. Basically it’s the replacement behavior for not being distant, objective and generalizing when you do research about people. IDEO convinced us that empathy is the answer, and from where I sit that’s a poor translation of what the reflexive turn has to offer design. It takes a bit of work to grab on to the idea, but it’s truly, truly worth the effort. This chapter makes it almost painless, I promise.

In her own words this chapter’s job is “situating visual images and technologies in relation to a reflexive approach to ethnography that focuses on subjectivity, creativity and self consciousness” (14). When in doubt the answer is in that sentence. Reflexivity replaces objectivity with subjectivity, neutrality with creativity, and distance with self consciousness. Designers ask me all the time about how to make their data objective, and at first they don’t believe me when I say their data should be subjective. The trick is in the how of subjectivity. If you show your work, if you probe and disclose and reveal your own subjectivity, you’re not explaining your data you’re literally adding to your data. Your subjectivity is inextricable from that data, and this is the core of reflexivity. It doesn’t mean a knee jerk reflex, it means that taking in and expressing outward are inextricable to another.

She does a lot of other wonderful stuff in this chapter that’s specific to the creation and interpretation of images, but I don’t think it’s new or surprising that images can help us observe and describe the world, or that they can help others express their way of experiencing their own existence.

There’s a whole other pivot called the ontological turn but I’ll get to that when we talk about Designs for the Pluriverse by Escobar. It’s such a captivating topic, and so much work is happening on the topic, I’m motivate to write about that next.

If you’ve never worked with cameras before, get this book! Use your phone as a tool. Listen to the advice, and get out there to try what she suggests. It’s not for everyone but if this speaks to you, this is the reference that will keep your work rigorous and evolving.

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