Image and sound are increasingly being implemented in both academic and applied research, also in anthropology. It is now difficult to imagine doing qualitative research without incorporating the virtual lives of our interlocutors, or, more practically, without a smartphone that captures sound and image instantly. Besides text, anthropologists now increasingly produce audiovisual media about their ethnographic findings from the field. By turning image and sound into documentaries and essay films, photo essays, or (virtual) art installations, they actively challenge the limits of academic representation. These new developments are shaping our methodologies and our ways of crafting knowledge. But audiovisual anthropology is not new. The gathering of audiovisual material and the audiovisual representation of ethnographic data have a prevailing history in anthropology.

In this course, we will explore the history and variety of audiovisual approaches in anthropology and analyse how different forms of image and sound work as tools for cultural exchange, theorizing, and situated understanding. In the course, we will also investigate in detail the role of positionality of film makers in the way film is being made as well as our own positionality as a viewer and a maker. Specifically, we will watch and analyse new and classical work in anthropological filmmaking and students will collectively produce a short film. The course therefore not only deals with theory on audiovisual representations, but also on the practical dilemmas and the ethical concerns of ?doing? audiovisual ethnography.