Working visually in community identity ethnography

Abstract

[Abstract]: This paper explores the democratic and participatory potential resident within visual ethnographic research. The first section presents the scope of the field of new digital technologies that contribute to more complex forms of visually-based research and looks at the ways in which the visual has come to present useful possibilities for researchers looking to create more authentic experiences of the site under consideration. The authors typically follow a six-stage process in conducting their research work, and each of these stages presents opportunity for the application of visual research approaches, and the second section of this paper draws upon one visually-based project and demonstrates how various techniques and approaches have been utilized in that work.