Reimagining Ethnography with Media Co-Creation

Ethnography, rooted in the discipline of anthropology, has evolved significantly over time, reflecting a complex past tied to colonialism and a Eurocentric view of the world and the shifting intellectual terrains of anthropology itself as it reflects on it’s troubled history.  Ethnography aims to describe life as it is lived and experienced by a people, at a particular time and place, emphasizing the importance of direct observation and participant observation. Anthropology engages in a broader study of the conditions and possibilities of human life in the world, seeking to understand the diverse ways in which humans experience and interpret their environments and social relations and how meaning is constructed.  The interconnection between anthropology, ethnography, and colonialism raised a need for critical reflection and methodological innovation within the discipline, seeking ways to reconcile its colonial past with a commitment to social justice and ethical engagement with diverse cultures and communities.  This history notwithstanding, ethnography can enhance our understanding of both contemporary and historical cultures. The effects of globalization have prompted methodological shifts within ethnographic practice. These changes raise questions about the capacity of ethnography to capture the complexities of societies transformed by global processes, challenging ethnographers to adapt their methods to account for the multifaceted nature of contemporary social life.

Anthropological work, including ethnography, has often been critiqued for its role in the colonial project, with some describing the discipline as a "child of Western imperialism" or "scientific colonialism." Recent scholarly efforts aim to critically consider the varied colonial situations in which ethnographic knowledge was produced, showing how theoretical and methodological colonial contexts influenced orientations. Colonialism provided the conditions for ethnographic fieldwork and shaped the content and approach of anthropological study. Ethnographers and colonial administrators often shared objectives, leading to a mutual reinforcement of colonial governance and anthropological inquiry. This relationship facilitated the collection of ethnographic data that was sometimes utilized to support colonial administration. Yet, the complexity of this relationship also meant that anthropological knowledge could serve colonial interests and provide a basis for critiquing or undermining colonial ideologies.

For more on these issues through a historical lens, see George W. Stocking (1991). Colonial Situations: Essays on the Contextualization of Ethnographic Knowledge. University of Wisconsin Press. This book initiates a critical historical consideration of the varying colonial situations in which (and out of which) ethnographic knowledge essential to anthropology has been produced. The motivations and responses of the anthropologists discussed include the romantic resistance of Maclay and the complicity of Kubary in early colonialism; Malinowski's salesmanship of academic anthropology; Speck's advocacy of Indian land rights; Schneider's grappling with the ambiguities of rapport; and Turner's facilitation of Kaiapo cinematic activism.

Ethnography is more than a methodology or practice, it is different from most qualitative research methods in that is is “a way of seeing” through the lens of culture. If you read one book on ethography, it should probably be Harry F. Wolcott’s Ethnography Lessons: A Primer  (Routledge, 2010). The book introduces the process of performing an ethnographic study and provides guidance how to create analogies and metaphors to help explain your work, and also covers ethical issues. It’s an introductary summary of his many years of writing on ethnography in one volume.

Contemporary practitioners have been exploring radical expansions to the horizon of ethnographic methodologies, working in a manner that is simultaneously inductive and deductive, empirical and imaginative, see Jean Comaroff  and John Comaroff (2003). Ethnography on an Awkward Scale. Ethnography, 4, 147 - 179. https://doi.org/10.1177/14661381030042001. They write, “In a postcolonial age in which ‘natives’ everywhere speak for themselves, it is, simply, redundancy. The alternative, patently, is to argue for a theoretically and politically principled social science.” ( p. 156); and “Ethnography is like much else in the social sciences; indeed, more so than anthropologists often acknowledge. It is a multi-dimensional exercise, a coproduction of social fact and sociological imagining, a delicate engagement of the inductive with the deductive, of the real with the virtual, of the already-known with the surprising, of verbs with nouns, processes with products, of the phenomenological with the political.” (p. 172).

The development of collaborative ethnographies and public anthropology emphasizes the potential of ethnography to engage broader audiences and contribute to public discourse. Collaborative approaches, which involve researchers and subjects in producing ethnographic texts, offer powerful means for bringing anthropological insights to bear on pressing social issues, thereby enhancing the discipline's relevance and impact in the public sphere, see Luke Eric Lassiter (2005). Collaborative Ethnography and Public Anthropology. Current Anthropology, 46, pp. 83-106, https://doi.org/10.1086/425658. He writes, “…doing collaborative ethnography—really doing it, with consultants directing the text’s content—brings little prestige, power, and authority for academics who depend on prestige, power, and authority for the growing of their careers. While many ethnographers are quick to give collaboration lip service, few actually engage in it. It is much safer to theorize it and, in practice, to engage it only as metaphor.” (p. 102).

In the postcolonial era, the discipline of anthropology has been called to reassess its methodologies, concepts, and roles in light of its colonial legacy. This reassessment includes exploring alternatives such as "native anthropology," which seeks to decolonize anthropological practice by centering the perspectives and voices of those traditionally studied as "subjects." Such efforts aim to address and mitigate the historical exploitation inherent in the colonial origins of anthropology, moving towards a more ethical and equitable practice of ethnographic research, see: Peter Pels and Oscar Salemink, eds. (1999). Colonial Subjects: Essays on the Practical History of Anthropology. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.16162.

While we’re confronting anthropology’s role in colonialism, I recommend watching Raoul Peck's Exterminate All the Brutes (https://www.hbo.com/exterminate-all-the-brutes) if you have not already seen it. This four-part docuseries on HBO is one of the best documentaries I've seen regarding cinematic storytelling and how it handles difficult subject matter. Peck takes a personal journey approach to deconstructing the extractive and genocidal aspects of European colonialism. Peck handles this difficult topic with eloquence and grace without sugarcoating the harsh realities of white supremacy, neofascism, xenophobia, and our relentless assault on the natural world. Peck challenges us to confront the truths of history to create a more just future for everyone.

The storytelling is enriched by Peck drawing on three significant books as he weaves together his personal story with the historical narrative: (1) Sven Lindqvist’s Exterminate All the Brutes (https://amzn.to/49frPLl), (2) Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (https://amzn.to/49pbdRC), and (3) Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (https://amzn.to/4aepEJ8). 

Quote from Cizek, Uricchio, et al. (2019):  “Traveling to the Qobustan petroglyph site, across the flats of central Azerbaijan, one arrives at the base of a sudden, enormous heap of rocky boulders jutting out of the semi-desert. Up inside the rocks, in hidden crevices and sprawled across its interior rock faces, lies a spectacular collection of more than 6,000 prehistoric rock carvings etched over the course of 40,000 years. The petroglyphs feature human figures dancing, warriors with lances in their hands, antelopes and wild bulls fleeing, battle scenes, long boats with lines of armed rowers, caravans of camels, and images of the sun and stars. Here, inscribed in stone, is life on earth, and the cosmos as understood by humanity over millennia. These carvings also provide evidence of the recurrent practice of the co-creation processes that have shaped our languages, music, early texts, performance, architecture, and art over the millennia. Yet, these collective practices are often under-documented, under-recognized, and under-funded, especially in the past 150 years, with the industrialization of cultural production. Eurocentric commerce and scholarship have tended to focus on industrial forms of top-down production, meaning-making, and media that privilege the idea of a singular author, and by extension a singular authority.”

Quote from Cizek, Uricchio, et al. (2019): “This methodology of media production often serves as a rationalization of extractive, harmful, and commodifying practices. By contrast, as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said in her 2009 lecture: “When we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.”

Quote from Cizek, Uricchio, et al. (2019): “Co-creation is increasingly recognized in such areas as education, healthcare, technology and urban design. Although each of these and other fields have distinct approaches, fundamentally co-creation is an alternative to—and often a contestation of— a singular voice, authority, and/or process. Further, within digital infrastructures, the lines between audiences, subjects, and makers are blurred, and often erased.” 

Source: Katerina Cizek, William Uricchio, et al., “Collective Wisdom: Co-Creating Media within Communities, across Disciplines and with Algorithms,” work in progress, MIT Press, 2019, https://wip.mitpress.mit.edu/collectivewisdom 

Image: Qobustan petroglyph site, etched over the course of 40,000 years, photo by Walter Callens. 

The Quipu Project (2015) [https://docubase.mit.edu/project/quipu-project/] recounts one of the darker moments in recent Peruvian history by having users listen and respond to the recorded messages of its victims.  Overview: The interactive, online documentary project, “Quipu,” seeks to create collective memory and help achieve justice for the nearly 300,000 women (and thousands of men) who were the subjects of a brutal sterilization program under Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori in the 1990s. The program targeted rural, poor and indigenous communities, thousands of whom have said they were forced to participate in the program without giving informed consent, and many of whom continue to suffer painful symptoms as the result of botched operations to this day.

The project’s name, design and inspiration comes from the ancient Inca system, Quipu, a system of colorful knotted strings used to keep official records and tell stories. Users click through colored dot icons, each representing a section of the testimony, and listen to the audio of phone calls from over 100 women–and counting– who dialed a collect telephone number and recorded messages about their experiences. The audio, along with responses from listeners, was collected using Drupal VoIP, an open source technology developed at MIT’s  Center for Civic Media. The result is a hybrid interactive documentary/ participatory oral history project that ends with a call to action to seek justice for the victims. (Source: Maria Court, Rosemarie Lerner, MIT Open Documentary Lab)

In a typical year, landlords file 3.6 million eviction cases. The Eviction Lab [https://evictionlab.org/] at Princeton University creates data, interactive tools, and research to help neighbors and policymakers understand the eviction crisis. How is the eviction crisis affecting your community? Find out with our newly updated map, which now covers all 50 U.S. states & D.C. You can search for your county, compare data across regions, interact with demographic characteristics, and create local reports. New features include: Data from 2000 to 2018 Estimated data for every county in all 50 U.S. states & D.C. (Source: The Eviction Lab)

WORK: The Eviction Lab has made nationwide eviction data publicly available and accessible. We hope this data is used by policymakers, community organizers, journalists, educators, non-profit organizations, students, and citizens interested in understanding more about housing, eviction, and poverty in their own backyards. You can look at evictions over time, map evictions in the United States, compare the eviction rates of different neighborhoods, cities, or states, and generate custom reports about America’s eviction epidemic. Researchers can use the data to help us document the prevalence, causes, and consequences of eviction and to evaluate laws and policies designed to promote residential security and reduce poverty. Together, we hope our findings will inform programs to prevent eviction and family homelessness, raise awareness of the centrality of housing insecurity in the lives of low-income families, and deepen our understanding of the fundamental drivers of poverty in America. (Source: The Eviction Lab)

BACKGROUND: Matthew Desmond started studying housing, poverty, and eviction in 2008, living and working alongside poor tenants and their landlords in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Combining ethnographic fieldwork with original statistical analyses, Desmond discovered that eviction was incredibly prevalent in low-income communities and functioned as a cause, not just a condition, of poverty. This work was summarized in his book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (2016). When speaking to people and policymakers across the country about Evicted, Desmond realized the need to collect national data on eviction to address fundamental questions about residential instability, forced moves, and poverty in America. With the support of the Gates, JPB, and Ford Foundations, as well as the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Desmond founded the Eviction Lab in 2017 with the conviction that stable, affordable housing can be an effective platform to promote economic mobility, health, and community vitality. (Source: The Eviction Lab)

In 2016 the authors came together to design an educational interaction for college students and indigenous media makers that would support community initiatives while at the same time opening students to different cultural frameworks and ways of being in the world. As a result, two courses ran in 2016 and 2017 that initiated our experiments in teaching media co-creation in higher education. The engagement remains active, with the program running again in 2023.

The participants demonstrated a model for adaptive and responsive ways of working across cultural, geographic, and socio-political borders in new relationships, constituting a more just and equitable media ecosystem. The current moment is helping us understand more about how this model provides a framework for revising the media arts curriculum.

Participating in this work de-programs the colonialist mindset while learning and contributing, allowing participants to root their contribution from their distinct cultural position while interrogating it. The participants demonstrated a model for adaptive and responsive ways of working across cultural, geographic, and socio-political borders in new relationships that constitute a more just and equitable media ecosystem. The current moment is helping us understand more about how this model provides a framework for revising the media arts curriculum. Participating in this work de-programs the colonialist mindset while learning and contributing, allowing participants to root their contribution from their distinct cultural position while interrogating it. By co-creating community stories from an indigenous perspective, we build curricular structures that bring participants together to enact equity, justice, and narrative sovereignty that change how we think and design for the future.

Example video: Coditursk, community-driven eco-tourism project.

Minka consists of assuming the responsibility of the work jointly and distributing the benefits of the work to all. this is fulfilled by contributing knowledge, ideas, and equipment, working together to reach a goal, and having many enriching experiences in that process.  

Ranti Ranti is the exchange of favors to reciprocate. fulfilled by the exchange of knowledge, talents, and work. 

Media co-creation is a relational, networked, and organically collaborative process consistent with Minka and Ranti Ranti

Example video: Sumak Muyu. Living in the village of La Calara in Ecuador, the women of Sumak Muyo create sustainable jewelry made from the tagua palm nut. They use the video on their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/sumakmuyu/videos

See also: Brenda Longfellow (2020). “Co-Creation Is Not for the Faint of Heart: Musings from an Evolving Field.” Afterimage 47 (1): 54–60. https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2020.471010.

Framing the shot example — the mountain is more important (framing the shot story) — 

Collaboration: Community liaisons with students and APAK producers, who coordinate the project. There is no director, no auteur; decisions are often made by a subset of the group, not every decision needs to be made by the group as a while, but rarely by a single person. 

The theme, script, shot list, and gathering of resources was done during a pre-productions session with the community liaisons, APAK producers, and students, with dialogue faculty working as facilitators and translators. 

Students often took on stretch roles under the guidance of experienced APAK videographers and producers. 

Community screening, giving back to the community, all of the media assets are returned to the community. 

Preparation for the project, Part 1 — Classes in Ecuador’s history, contemporary culture, and the politics of exibition (what gets show, representation, etc.).

Preparation for the project, Part 1 — Classes in Ecuador’s history, contemporary culture, and the politics of exibition (what gets show, representation, etc.).

Preparation for the project, Part 2 — Documentary Video Bootcamp, fundamentals of documentary production in four intensive days

Preparation for the project, Part 2 — Documentary Video Bootcamp, City as Studio Project, provides students a chance to put together everything they learned in the bootcamp finding a subject for a short profile of someone who works in the colonial center of Quito, a vendor, artist, shopkeeper, etc. Students were asked to share the video with their subject, some did, some did not, this is one aspect of the project that needs more structure in my mind. 

Quito - Colonial Center is a Unesco world heritage site. 

Editing their city as studio profile; Part 3 — screening of city as a studio project with APAK producers as a way to begin to get to know APAK

Upon arrival in Otavalo, start with Media Co-Creation Workshop with Community Producers; after the students have completed their first encounter with the city as a studio project, they are ready to dive deeper into both the production process and community engagement.

A Media Co-Creation Workshop Document Template (Google Doc) is available at:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RzWEMcTpqzZw-aF7r2nP3jzyH7Tx1dfS29DedIsq-uo/edit?usp=sharing

Keep in mind this is intended to be a living document that is revised as the project progresses; this document will become a memorandum of understanding between all of the parties involved in the project; focus on a first draft during the workshop and return to it after each project milestone and discuss revisions that may be required.

This was shared extemporaneously and interactively. In 2016 we learned students needed more production preparation, so we added the "Documentary Video Bootcamp" sequence. Also, the scope of the project in 2016 was too demanding, so we simplified the work for 2017, with less production emphasis and more community engagement. In 2023, we had the benefit of learning from 2016 and 2017, followed by a longer preparation period due to the pandemic, both APAK as well as David and Jean had better idea of what we could expect the students to accomplish and APAK had more experience working with us, so they expanded their own workshop for introducing the students to the community, more time was spent on the introduction to the community and process of entry into the community.

Working in a co-creative structure provide a more effective framework for engaged teaching and learning, bringing togehter being and doing (“hands”), multiple ways of knowing (“head”), and a path towards wisdom (“heart”). 

Chart adapted from Figure 2.2 in Marshall Welch & Star Plaxton-Moore, The Craft of Community-Engaged Teaching and Learning, Campus Compact, 2019.

“Co-creation offers alternatives to a single-author vision, and involves a constellation of media production methods, frameworks, and feedback systems. In co-creation, projects emerge from a process, and evolve from within communities and with people, rather than for or about them. Co-creation also spans across and beyond disciplines and organizations, and can also involve non-human or beyond human systems.”

Source: Katerina Cizek, William Uricchio, et al., “Collective Wisdom: Co-Creating Media within Communities, across Disciplines and with Algorithms,” work in progress, MIT Press, 2019, https://wip.mitpress.mit.edu/collectivewisdom

“Our research shows that co-creation interprets the world, and seeks to change it, through a lens of equity and justice.”

“Co-creation carries with it a profound respect for each person’s unique expertise, and also the knowledge that we must share both the burden and the liberation of determining our future collectively.  There is an urgency to the challenges we face in this moment in history, and no one person, organization, or discipline can determine all the answers alone.”

Source: Katerina Cizek, William Uricchio, et al., “Collective Wisdom: Co-Creating Media within Communities, across Disciplines and with Algorithms,” work in progress, MIT Press, 2019, https://wip.mitpress.mit.edu/collectivewisdom

Culturally relevant community engagement with an emphasis on equity and justice:

Community engagement should be culturally relevant. We use communication tools, time, space, and relationships to inform people. Residents give their input and participation in projects, processes, and programs. People connect by geography, interests, or likeness. They come together to address issues affecting the collective wellbeing.

(1) Students and community members work together on a team to address matters of concern to the community using a participatory and iterative process — Co-creation is a mindset and approach. It's about working together with the community to tackle specific challenges. Co-creation uses an active and ongoing participatory process. It assumes shared power, responsibility, accountability, and decision-making with community members. We center on those most harmed by inequality.

(2) Community members participate in all phases of the the project: ideation, planning, production, post production, distribution plan — Co-creation involves engaging with community members on strategy at the earliest possible moment. We rely on their experience and expertise to identify and frame problems. Residents inform work plans and policies to create solutions.

(3) Power, responsibility, accountability, and decision-making are shared among all members of the team and key stakeholders identified by the team — With community engagement, the community's influence is often limited. The public is not involved in the initial stages and planning. They have a role later in the process.  All co-creation involves community engagement. But not all community engagement is co-creation.

(4) Co-creation engages the experience and expertise of both students and community members working as peers and learning from each other — With co-creation, the community is a thought partner from the beginning of a process. They guides our initiatives, goals, methods, and analyses. This creates accountability for all to stay on track with our shared goals.

All co-creation involves community engagement, however, not all community engagement is co-creation

With co-creation, the community is a thought partner from the beginning of a process and they guide the vision, goals, methods, and assessment of the work. This creates accountability for all stakeholders

The co-creation wheel developed by the Co-Creation Studio, MIT Open Documentary Lab,  https://cocreationstudio.mit.edu/interactive-co-creation-wheel/ shows that co-creation lives within an ecosystem of practices.

My interest in storytelling, and in particular, documentary storytelling ...

... in the traditon of participatory media and “cinema communitario” (cinema as an activity of organized social groups that produce without the intervention of outside filmmakers or the social/politcal/economic trappings of large-budget film productions).

There are four types of co-creation: (1) Co-creation within communities, in-person; (2) Co-creation on-line and with emergent media; (3) Co-Creation across disciplines and beyond; (4) Co-Creation between humans and non-human systems; each is quite different, adapted from Katerina Cizek, William Uricchio, et al., “Collective Wisdom: Co-Creating Media within Communities, across Disciplines and with Algorithms,” work in progress, MIT Press, 2019, https://wip.mitpress.mit.edu/collectivewisdom 

A Media Co-Creation Workshop Document Template (Google Doc) is available at: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RzWEMcTpqzZw-aF7r2nP3jzyH7Tx1dfS29DedIsq-uo/edit?usp=sharing

Keep in mind this is intended to be a living document that is revised as the project progresses; this document will become a memorandum of understanding between all of the parties involved in the project; focus on a first draft during the workshop and return to it after each project milestone and discuss revisions that may be required.

Several books have inspired this work, for an in depth look at media co-creation, see Katerina Cizek and William Uricchio, et al. Collective Wisdom: Co-Creating Media for Equity and Justice, MIT Press, 2022.

The short list:

Katerina Cizek and William Uricchio, et al. Collective Wisdom: Co-Creating Media for Equity and Justice, MIT Press, 2022.

Sasha Costanza-Chock. Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need, MIT Press, 2020.

Arturo Escobar. Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds, Duke University Press, 2018.

Paulo Freire. Pedagogy of the Oppressed, revised edition. Continuum, 1993.

Donna J. Haraway. Staying With the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Duke University Press, 2016.

bell hooks. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, Routledge, 1994. 

bell hooks. Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope, Routledge, 2003.

Robin Wall Kimmerer. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, Milkweed Editions, 2015.

David Tamés, Teaching Professor, Department of Art + Design, College of Arts, Media and Design, Northeastern University, Contact form: https://davidtames.com/contact/

THE FINE PRINT: © 2024 David Tames, Samia Maldonado, and Jean Schmitt, some rights reserved, released under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en you may copy and redistribute the material, however, keep in mind some materials included herein may be copyright and are being used under the terms of the fair use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law, and it’s your responsibility to comply with both the letter and the spirit of the law and the manner this document has been licensed. Third-party works are attributed whenever possible. A link back to the author is requested: David Tamés, https://camd.northeastern.edu/people/david-tames/ (bio page); or David Tamés, https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidtames/ (LinkedIn).