Research Video: Audiovisual Ethnography and beyond
No. 26 (2020-01-01)Author(s)
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Léa KlaueAudiovisual Media, Zurich University of the Arts lea.klaue@zhdk.ch
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Martin ZimperAudiovisual Media, Zurich University of the Arts martin.zimper@zhdk.ch
Abstract
“Research Video” is an interdisciplinary state funded research project (2017 - 2020, Switzerland) in the fields of design, artistic research, and visual anthropology; its aim is to explore the possibilities of video for science communication. The project aims to develop a new standard for scientific publication—comparable to scientific journal publications—through video annotation.
In the history of scientific publication, text has been the main form of presenting research results. In our project we ask the question “Can research results be presented exclusively or mainly through video? If so, what would a standardized, internationally accepted format look like?”
Through the development of a video annotation-tool and its application in two exemplary PhD theses, which are used as case studies, these questions are explored.
This paper is going to present the author’s PhD project: her ethnographic fieldwork in Bolivia. It investigates child labor in a country where rates are high, but children’s help and lucrative activities have a cultural anchor. Through observation, video workshops, interviews and mixed methods, an audio-visual ethnography is created of people’s lives who had to start work at an age deemed too young by Western understanding. A series of short videos (the research data) reveals the voices of the child and youth workers who are the main actors of this research topic.
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