Dear Colleagues,
I’ve been developing a course outline for a possible MA in Media Ethnography to run at MIRIAD, the
art and design research institute at Manchester Metropolitan University where I am a researcher (see
below).
I used to teach at the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology that enrolled only anthropology
graduates and concentrated on ethnographic filmmaking. The idea for this course is to allow students
from many backgrounds to practise ethnography in all kinds of settings and using different media,
thus broadening the scope of what creative ethnographic practice might be. Below is a brief outline
of the course I have in mind. At this early stage I would really welcome feedback on how relevant
you think such a course would be to your field, especially to research students. If you have any
specific suggestions of what you would want to see covered in such a course this would be very
helpful too.
Just a suggestion, but perhaps rather than block up the list you could email any comments to me at
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If list members were interested in the response, I could collate these and post them on the list in
a few days time?
Media Ethnography
Ethnography as an academic practice is strongly linked to social anthropology. It involves first
hand knowledge of social situations as a means to exploring subjective, lived experience. Interest
in ethnographic techniques has grown enormously over the last few years. Today they are used by
visual artists, curators, documentary filmmakers, photographers, architects, urban planners, and
researchers in health and community studies, business studies and education. At the same time,
researchers in traditional fields of ethnographic enquiry are increasingly exploring more innovative
ways of pursuing their work.
An MA in Media Ethnography would bring together traditional techniques of ethnographic study –
fieldwork, participant observation, the interview, archival study, the questionnaire etc, with
practices of filmmaking, video installation, photography, writing and performance. Students would
be encouraged to extend their practice through a rigorous engagement with the ethical,
methodological, conceptual and aesthetic dimensions of ethnographic research.
Aims
The MA in Media Ethnography would have three key aims
• To enable students to access methods, media and theoretical literature appropriate to the
pursuit of ethnographic research in a wide range of contexts.
• To facilitate students in the exploration of the innovative new ground between ethnography
and creative practice.
• To support students in designing and developing ethical fieldwork-based projects.
Dr Amanda Ravetz
Manchester Metropolitan University,
Manchester Institute for Research & Innovation in Art & Design (MIRIAD)
Righton Building
Cavendish Street
Manchester M15 6BG
Tel: 00 44 (0)161 247 4606
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