Since I am in the middle of working on grants in preparation for upcoming fieldwork, I have a lot of methodological issues on my mind. I am going to use photography as a primary part of my research plan, and there are some critical questions that keep cropping up: when should research participants remain anonymous? When does it make sense to show participants’ faces in photographs–and attach names/biographies to those faces? Many of the ethnographies that I read keep subjects anonymous–in text and in images–almost axiomatically. This is pretty standard practice for many ethnographers, and considering the ethics and politics of ethnography, I understand why. However, I am wondering if there are times when it makes more sense (or when it’s the best ethical choice) to actually show faces and attach names/identities to photographs. More importantly, whose responsibility–or right–is it to make these decisions?
I read two different ethnographies this past semester that put photography to use in some very different ways. One was Laughter Out of Place by Donna M. Goldstein. She made the editorial choice to obscure the faces of her research participants. This results in dark, ominous images throughout the text that have a somewhat unsettling feel. Interestingly, Goldstein consciously decided to keep her subjects anonymous even though they were seemingly open to having their portraits in her book:
While all of the people I came to know were enthusiastic about the prospect of having their photographs appear in a published book, I have chosen to fog their expressive and aesthetically pleasing faces to ensure their personal security (Goldstein 2003:2).
Goldstein’s decisions were anything but simple. Her research participants were dealing with very real personal dangers in many cases, so the question of anonymity is absolutely critical. Still, considering the fact that her research subjects expected to be pictured in her publication, did she make the right call? When should the wishes of people be set aside in the name of security and safety? Are anthropologists the ones who should make these sorts of decisions? Or should these choices be made, and agreed upon, in a collaborative manner? Are there cases in which ethnographers have to make the command decision and do what they think is best?
These are incredibly complex questions, and there isn’t some simple rubric that can give us the answers we need. Again, I am not denying the basic reasoning behind Goldstein’s actions, let alone the fact that such decisions are immensely complex. I understand the reasons why ethnographers keep names and places anonymous. Yet I wonder if this technique is always the right path. Mostly, this has me thinking about the ultimate use and purpose of ethnographic texts. Maybe, in some cases and for some purposes, obscuring faces and effacing names is definitely the best decision. Goldstein argues for the need to give voice, and to represent the real lives of the people she knows so intimately. But what power do they have, ultimately, when they no longer have names or faces? Are these women really speaking through this text, or have they been silenced in the name of IRBs, liability, and ethical decisions? What’s the use of all of the detail, context, and discussions about structural power if people might not even recognize their own stories?
The other photographically-inclined ethnography I read this past semester was Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg’s Righteous Dopefiend, which utilizes a pretty different tactic than Laughter Out of Place. The faces of research subjects are prominently displayed, yet their names are kept anonymous. This, despite the fact that Bourgois and Schonberg’s research subjects “gave Jeff permission to photograph and encouraged is to use their real names when they signed the bureaucratic informed consent documents” (2009:9). This editorial/photographic tactic allows for readers to witness the brutal lives of Bourgois and Schonberg’s research subjects, yet still provides a measure of anonymity and protection. Is this method more effective than what Goldstein employed? Does it all just depend on the situation? Again, who makes the final call in this case, the subjects of the ethnographers/photographers?
There are, of course, ways of using photography that sidesteps these issues. Places, events, and situations can be photographs in ways that capture details yet keep people relatively anonymous. I have hundreds of images that are basically details, like this one:
I end up taking a lot of images similar to this, and I use them mostly as part of a note-taking process. I use them to remember situations, conversations, and interactions. Photographs–at least for me–are a really useful way to make visual reminders, and they are tremendously helpful for sparking my memory. But images like this are only fragments, details of lives and moments rather than whole stories. And they certainly aren’t the kinds of images that appeal to people I have met and worked with during previous field experiences. By far, what people appreciate and find the most fascinating are portraits–of family, friends, etc. So I end up taking a lot of pictures of people, but I generally don’t circulate those images beyond the communities themselves.
This brings up another interesting issue. My guess would be that Bourgois & Schonberg, along with Goldstein, gave their research participants copies of images they took while working in the field. I do this all the time as well. So there are some different levels of media production happening during fieldwork–this means that the publication of a final ethnographic text is by no means the limit of media production that takes place during the ethnographic process. There is a whole layer of informal image production and exchange that occurs among ethnographers and the people they work with. Long after anthropologists leave, these images will remain tucked away in notebooks, albums, drawers, and stored on digital devices. Photographs are, as Elizabeth Edwards argues, all about “relationships made visible” (2006:33). They are tangible reminders of interactions, agreements, conversations, and collaborations. Photographs are definitely illustrative of the collaborations and long-term social relationships/bonds that are built between ethnographers and research participants.
But these bonds and relationships are not always all that prominent in final ethnographic texts. So there is a kind of disconnect that occurs between actual fieldwork and the final publication of ethnographies–maybe because these texts are often written, edited, and produced far from field sites and research communities. At this point, the question I have isn’t whether or not to take pictures of people that show their faces and reveal their identities–I do this all the time. The question is when those faces should be included in final ethnographic publications, and when they should be left out. Ethnographies are clearly produced for certain audiences–and they are not necessarily made for the research communities themselves. We all know this. This is, I think, one reason why ethnographers often decide to keep subjects hidden and anonymous. Maybe.
However, if the production of photographs is the result of established agreements and relationships between ethnographers and participants, what gets lost when people are made anonymous in final publications? Interestingly, while research communities are hidden and “protected,” the researchers themselves are prominently displayed and identified in final texts. To me, there is something worth paying attention to here. Ethnographies are supposed to be about the communities themselves (theoretically), but what purposes do they really serve? If their pages are filled with nameless, faceless, hidden people, what do they have to do with the lives of the people who took the time to work with ethnographers? I wonder, at this point, what a more collaborative ethnography would look like. How would ethnographic texts look if they were designed–at least in part–to appeal to the needs and meanings of the research communities themselves? Would participants choose to keep their identities hidden, or would they want to be prominently displayed–names, pictures and all–alongside the main “author” of the text? Definitely something to think about.
References
Bourgois, Philippe and Jeffrey Schonberg
2009 Righteous Dopefiend. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Edwards, Elizabeth
2006 Photographs and the Sound of History. Visual Anthropology Review, Volume 21(1/2):27-46.
Goldstein, Donna
2003 Laughter out of Place: Race, Class, Violence and Sexuality in a Rio Shantytown.
I am about to start working on grants, round two, for the substantial portion of my fieldwork. And I am also preparing to buy a camera. I have only had my iPhone (3) camera in the past, and of course that takes pretty mediocre photos. But despite having taught photography in the past, I am out of touch with current digital cameras, rusty, and I am also unsure about the logistical issues that will accompany my trying to bring a camera into my field sites.
Like you, I’m not quite sure how to handle the issue of potential publication, even with the encouragement of my collaborators. More pressing for me is the legal limitations though, as I am doing research in large bureaucratic organizations (TV networks) and they’re cagey about me, let alone me+ camera.
Not knowing where I or anyone else will stand on the photograph issue has meant that I do nothing other than idly look at cameras on Amazon, even though I leave for summer fieldwork in a little over a week.
Images are riskier than being there in person, and far riskier than interviews to the people I have been talking to. These are people who do images for a living, and are too savvy to be permissive.
Liz, I understand that my colleagues in North America face all sorts of bureaucratic hurdles, university review boards at one end of the research process, publishers demanding signed consent forms at the other. Here in Japan, where I work with people in the advertising business, I have found that what works best is common and professional courtesy. I ask before I shoot or record, show subjects the results and get their feedback in choosing which material to use, and explain that I will need one of these pesky consent forms. Not everyone, but most, are happy to oblige.
I have a hard time thinking of the images I record as “mine” even though people in the community may see them that way. I circulate them and they make a point of telling me how much they enjoy them. They sign consent forms in the beginning that would let me release their image to be used any way I choose, but I have come to believe more in informed release than informed consent. Before I publish any images officially I will ask if there are any images they would not want to see nightly on TV, the front page of the newspaper, or the cover of a magazine to put it in perspectives they understand. If they are adamant about censoring an image I respect it, but usually we have an interesting conversation about why or why not to share an image broadly. We get to discuss what they see in their image and this often leads to much more.
Also, your picture of a hands reminds me of a similar picture I have. Just looking at the image, everyone in the community knows exactly whose hand it is. No picture is anonymous.
@Liz:
“But despite having taught photography in the past, I am out of touch with current digital cameras, rusty, and I am also unsure about the logistical issues that will accompany my trying to bring a camera into my field sites.”
What kind of cameras are you looking at? For SLRs the entry level Canons (T2i, etc) are really good, especially for the price. Then, there are lots of point and shoots that shoot RAW files and give you lots of control over the camera.
As for logistics–do you mean the politics of bringing cameras to your site, or logistics as in the actual issues with carting the equipment around, etc?
“More pressing for me is the legal limitations though, as I am doing research in large bureaucratic organizations (TV networks) and they’re cagey about me, let alone me+ camera.”
That’s really fascinating that a TV network gets all nervous about someone walking around with a camera! How are you dealing with this caginess?
“Not knowing where I or anyone else will stand on the photograph issue has meant that I do nothing other than idly look at cameras on Amazon, even though I leave for summer fieldwork in a little over a week.”
I spend way too much time looking at camera equipment that I can’t afford right now on Amazon and Ebay. By the way, for good reviews of digital equipment, do you ever check out DPReview??? Or Karan Nakamura’s site? Links:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/
http://www.photoethnography.com/blog/
“Images are riskier than being there in person, and far riskier than interviews to the people I have been talking to. These are people who do images for a living, and are too savvy to be permissive.”
The irony is that their stock and trade rests in getting people to give them permission, right? It would be really interesting to talk to them about how they ask for and get permission to do interviews, etc.
@John:
“I ask before I shoot or record, show subjects the results and get their feedback in choosing which material to use, and explain that I will need one of these pesky consent forms.”
Sounds like a pretty solid method. And the great thing about digital is that showing the results is really easy these days.
@Jennifer W:
“I have a hard time thinking of the images I record as “mine” even though people in the community may see them that way.”
I like how you put this. I think it’s kind of funny when people talk about pictures in rigid terms of ownership, especially when they are of other people. Yes, photographers certainly are an important part of the process–but so are the people who have to sit on front of all the cameras.
“If they are adamant about censoring an image I respect it, but usually we have an interesting conversation about why or why not to share an image broadly. We get to discuss what they see in their image and this often leads to much more.”
Thanks for sharing this. You’ve given me some new ideas for how to approach some of these issues. I like the idea of talking through the use of images like this–and especially what these kinds of conversations and bring up. It is interesting why people would be more prone to sharing some images over others.
“Just looking at the image, everyone in the community knows exactly whose hand it is. No picture is anonymous.”
Agreed. Sometimes we think that faces are the only primary indicators of identity. Definitely not so. I guess pictures like this are only “relatively” anonymous.
Thanks for the comments everyone. Sorry for the lag in replying–my wife and I are moving this weekend, so things are a bit hectic!
I think a lot of the issues raised in this post speak to issues much broader then just photography, since it has to do with situations where expectations of privacy differ between the representer and the represented. Faces are a good way to bring this to light since on the one hand they are anonymous (no meta data is attached) and yet they are also the most existentially primary form of identification we have. As a four-year old I know — or was it Deleuze? — once said, ‘your face is on your head’.
My belief is that anthropologists ultimately should make a decisions they can live with, whether it is in accordance with the wishes of the represented or not. To be sure, their wishes should be a major part of your decision but at the end of the day you, not they, are to blame for the ethnography (for better or for worse) and you ought to take responsibility for what you have wrought.
One reason I say this is that texts are (basically) fixed, while our reception of them changes over time. I can’t underline this enough: when researching and writing we see books as the end of a process of research collaboration, instead of the beginning of a history of reception of a book. Before a book comes out people may want to appear in it. Afterwards they may wish they hadn’t. Ten years on people may be glad that their claim to history is in the book even if it didn’t turn out the way they want. Their children decry your colonializing lens. Their grandchildren are glad their heritage has been preserved.
In all this you can only do what you think is the right thing,
So as a rule of thumb I’d say:
1. take everyone’s feelings into account and decenter your epistemological privilege
2. think hard and long about the book as the start of something, not the end.
3. the best way that people receive the book the way it was meant is to be active in lives of people who read it.
4. make a decision — your own decision.
An author has a duty not just to write a book, but to guide it through it’s history of reception, both because of the duty of care you have to the represented, and because it’s _your_ book. I think taking responsibility and deciding for yourself is the only way to go in a world as messy as ours.
Thanks for the comment Rex. Lots of really good advice here. Definitely some good things to think about.
I really like what you are saying about books (and other publications) as the beginning of a process, rather than some static end point. That’s a really interesting and useful way to think about publications.
Also, I really appreciate your discussion about making decisions and how people may react to those decisions over time. Sometimes I think I focus so much on these kinds of things that it gets almost impossible to move forward. And you’re right: people will never completely be happy with the end product, and they might even change their opinions over time. So we all have to make the best decisions we can, and then go forward.
Thanks again for the comment.