The MA in Visual Anthropology explores traditional and experimental
means of using visual and audio-visual media to research, represent and
produce anthropological knowledge. Our pioneering use of multimedia in
anthropology is now complemented by an innovative interest in public
and ‘shared’ anthropology, critical engagement with policy and the use
of audio-visual and internet based media in advocacy and activism.
Visual Anthropology at Kent is both grounded in and committed to
practice-led theory in social anthropology. The course critically
examines the relation of the visual to the other senses and seeks
creative synthesis with important issues in medical, development and
public anthropology. Taught by anthropologists with longstanding
experience in audio-visual methods the MA in Visual Anthropology
embraces linked courses in contemporary anthropological theory and
empirical research methods, thereby providing students with an integral
basis for combining specific techniques of audio-visual analysis and
documentation with current social anthropological research.
Students develop critical and practical skills of audio-visual analysis
and production in relation to collaboration in a placement selected on
the basis of the student’s previous experience, interest and local
consultation. The aim is to create multimedia products both of use to
the people the students collaborate with and that reflect the learning
and research process of their production. The resulting negotiation
between the concerns of anthropology, the creative interests of the
student and the needs and requirements of the placement encourages a
reflexive and challenging synthesis of theory and practice. As such,
our philosophy accords with Rouch’s ethnographically led
‘shared-anthropology’ and aims to develop creativity and confidence
grounded in collaboration and reflexivity. Teaching is also based in a
collaborative ethos with students guiding the emphasis of some
training, co-authoring publications with staff and actively sharing
their previous expertise in dedicated seminars. The broad spectrum of
technical and academic expertise and the international backgrounds of
students mean that knowledge sharing and camaraderie go hand in hand.
Instruction in both conventional and digital techniques of still
photography, sound recording and digital film-making is supported by
dedicated darkroom facilities, together with the extensive postgraduate
computing equipment of the department, including professional
photographic and video-editing software. Leading experts from outside
the academy provide key practical training in relation to areas of
innovative anthropological engagement. Students are encouraged to use a
variety of media, appropriate to context, and are taught media
management and reflexive analysis.
The core training can be complimented with courses that can be chosen
as an option or audited. Students are also able to draw on the wide
supervisory expertise of other members of staff to engage in projects
with important outreach benefits and potential policy influence.
Students interested in biodiversity, the environment and conservation
benefit from the close association between the Anthropology department
and the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE)
(www.kent.ac.uk/dice/) and may do audio-visual projects in these areas.
Several of the professional filmmakers teaching on the course bring
unique insights in the areas of conservation filmmaking and integrated
film and internet advocacy. There are regular ethnographic and
documentary film screenings in the Autumn Term and a documentary film
series in the Spring Term, when we invite cutting-edge filmmakers to
present and talk about their most challenging work.
By the end of the second term, students have gone through all the
collaborative stages of multimedia production to finally showing their
multimedia production to their collaborating organisation and
theorizing its reception. For their summer dissertation project
students may choose to continue to work locally or carry out a separate
project in the country or place of their choice, including a
photographic, film or multimedia component to their dissertation.
Past students have ranged near and far for their summer project, from
examining the politics of knowledge in the oyster trade in Whitstable
(Miller, 2005) and the use of public space and cycling in Amsterdam
(Quigley, 2008) to a visual ethnography of youth in Iranian Kurdistan
(Ahmady, 2006) and Kalenjin transnational long-distance runners in
Germany (Zacharias, 2008). Students have offered a visual
anthropological contribution to museums (Einhorn, 2002), an assessment
of the role of musicians in community (Rundell, 2006), linked Gitano
image and identity in Granada’s flamenco performances (Renshaw, 2008)
and reflected on collaborative filmmaking (Cork, 2005). Most recently
students have addressed the very challenging issues of youth experience
in Southern Kurdistan (Abdullah, 2009) and the impact of violence on
human rights observers in Columbia (Krause, 2009).
Enquiries
to:
Dr Mike Poltorak
School of Anthropology and Conservation
Marlowe Building
University of Kent
Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NR
