Visual Ethnography

Drawn to see - the Causey way

Using drawings as an ethnographic method has become fundamental to my rhizome research.  This helps support my researcher participant-observer position in addition to elucidating my own embodied experience of the social phenomenon under study (child-dog interactions within a classroom).  I call these 'etudes'  a term coined by Andrew Causey in his illuminating account of how to be an authentic ethnographer in the field . By using etudes each week they help make connections with concepts and ideas related to my theoretical framework, viewing the world through a post-structuralist, post-human and new materialism lens. They also move beyond text and convey meaning to depict the aesthetic and sensory nature of the relationship between the children and their classroom dog  'Dave'. This can often be lost and conveyed differently through text.  My first etude below resonated with Deleuze and Guattari's notion of symbiosis and how the orchid and wasp co-produce one another through pollination and nectar creation.  This is akin to Barad's idea of intra-action, (as opposed to inter-action) and agenital realism.  As the children and classroom dog 'Dave' intra-act they each are transformed by the encounter to become agenic in different ways. As agency can be a tricky concept, these agenic 'cuts' can be subtle and oblique. The child may feel more able to manage their work tasks and ' Dave' may gain a sense of nurturance. The multiplicity of the encounter can be profound.

Etude 1. Orchid and Wasp