Multimodal Ethnography Network
Network Convenors
Alexa Faerber (University of Vienna) alexa.faerber(at)univie.ac.at
Karen Waltorp (University of Copenhagen) karen.waltorp(at)anthro.ku.dk
Anne Chahine (Research Institute for Sustainability Helmholtz Centre Potsdam) anne.chahine(at)rifs-potsdam.de
The EASA Multimodal Ethnography Network is a permanent network for the experimentation and exploration of multimodal practice in ethnographic fieldwork. Members embrace an understanding of multimodality and multimedia that is simultaneously old/new, analogue/digital, low tech/high tech, in person/at a distance. The network aims to create spaces for playful experimentation with these dichotomies and tensions during plenaries at the bi-annual EASA conference, annual meetings and member-organised events. With strong roots in anthropological theory and practice, the network branches out globally with the aim of fostering creative, critical, and pluridisciplinary dialogues and productions between researchers internationally in anthropology, on its fringes, and beyond.
To join our network please subscribe to our mailing list.
About Us
Network focus and aims
Recent years have seen a burgeoning interest in multimodal research in anthropology. As a visual, aural, inventive, artistic, and experimental practice that takes place within and beyond the academy, multimodal ethnography calls for a new scholarship and pedagogical languages and practices to support its flourishing. Multimodality in anthropology and ethnographic practice has a long and diverse history, yet it is currently undergoing something of a ‘coming of age’ and the network will aim to explore and push the boundaries of this liminal space and its tropes.
The network provides a space for the growing international and interdisciplinary network of multimodal ethnographers, EASA members and non-members, to address issues pertinent to the nurturing of this rapidly expanding circuit of practice including but not limited to the role of the following in multimedia and multimodal anthropological compositions: the role of production, curation and re-presentation; the appreciation, re-view and feedback of audio-visual compositions; the sites of knowledge and power; the collaborative, transformative, and unfolding temporalities of pre- and post-production; the live event and its afterlife; the role of audiences, publics, and other collectivities.
This network was established at a time when debates within anthropology, as well as across the interpretative social sciences, urge us towards a network that, while based in the European Association of Social Anthropologist, is open to and fosters a globality for a multimodal theory and practice that is sensitive and resonates with 21st century social changes. As a network we are especially keen to support early career researchers and anthropologists working outside of academia in recognition that anthropological knowledge and multimodal practice reside across career stages as well as being produced beyond the academy.
Background
The EASA Multimodal Ethnography Network was set up by Melissa Nolas and Christos Varvantakis who convened the network in its first three years. The network originated in discussions and exchanges in and around the journal entanglements: experiments in multimodal ethnography, which was set up and co-edited by Melissa and Christos, as well as their experiences of running educational workshops on multimodal ethnographic research. In these contexts, the need for the establishment of a network among researchers who engaged with multimodal ethnography emerged. In response to these discussions, Melissa Nolas and Christos Varvantakis co-converned a panel at the EASA conference in Lisboa in 2020 (P039, ‘Languages of entanglement: mapping the ethnographic modes and media’). The panel brought together an international and interdisciplinary body of anthropologists engaged in the field of multimodal ethnography to address issues related to the selection, curation, production, review, dissemination and consumption of audio-visual and other compositions. Discussions during the day seeded the idea for a permanent network and a call for further expressions of interest and support was circulated following the conference. The call generated an enthusiastic response with over 200 signatories, an application for a permanent network was submitted to EASA in November 2020 and was accepted in February 2021. In 2023, the convenorship baton was passed on to the current convenors. As per EASA by-laws the convenorship rotates every two to four years.
