We have discussed sketches and drawings in a separate module that you can find here.
We may think of graphic novels as the combination of drawings and text, but Stacy Leigh Pigg (2015) argues that graphic novels occupy a distinctive position as a third medium, offering unique possibilities that go beyond being mere illustrated texts or drawings accompanied by captions. Reflecting on possibilities this ‘third medium’ would provide, Pigg writes that shots can be utilized to plunge the reader directly into a particular setting, while close-ups can be used to delve into the inner thoughts of characters. Similarly, simplifications can help direct focus, and relationships between individuals are conveyed through gestures, poses, and actions. Panels can be skillfully composed to offer multiple perspectives and guide the reader’s movement. Page layouts can implicitly connect ideas and present arguments about their interrelatedness. This helps to unearth layers to dialogue and dynamics between
Illustrated scene-to-scene panels also capture a sense of being in-motion, this capacity subverts the immobilizing effect that written accounts are often liable to. Graphic depictions also offer an avenue to extend the reach of academic work by encouraging wider engagement; they are candidly intended to be both public and artistic. This makes them particularly valuable to the aim of establishing and building rapport with one’s interlocutors and engaging those that they intend to represent. While anthropology relies on the information and insights of many, the register of academic writing often risks rendering it accessible, desirable, and legible to only few. Depending on the ambitions and intended audience of the ethnography, offering an additional alternate medium for one’s work can be evident of a genuine commitment to engage with those that it depends on.
These are some reasons that some anthropologists have been experimented with the format and are convinced about “the virtues of the format” and believe that it fits “really well with ethnography” (Brackenbury 2015). A good example of how graphic novel as a genre is utilized to represent ethnographic experiences is the ethnoGRAPHIC series published by the University of Toronto Press.
Ethnographic fiction
Although the 1970s marks the turn towards experimenting with ethnographic forms, the practice of writing ethnographic fiction has a long history within the discipline. In her concise historical survey of ethnographic fiction, Narayan (1999, 136) identifies Adolph Bandelier’s 1890 novel, The Delight Makers, as the first of its genre. Narayan further demonstrates how the pioneers of modern anthropology in North America, such as Franz Boas, Edward Sapir, Robert Lowie, and Paul Radin, engaged in writing fictional works that focused on their research topics. Zora Neale Hurston also notably incorporated ethnographically-informed insights into her fictional narratives. Likewise, Ella Deloria, a researcher who collaborated with Boas, authored Waterlily in the 1940s, a novel “set in the past of her own tribe, the Dakota Sioux” (Narayan 1999, 136).Numerous scholars have recognized both the similarities and differences between the genres of ethnography and fiction. James Clifford famously posited that ethnographic writings can rightfully be regarded as fictions in the sense of ‘something made or fashioned,’ embracing the underlying notion of the word’s Latin root fingere (Clifford 1986, 6). Clifford Geertz, in particular, argued that ethnography relies on the powers of fiction (Pandian 2017, 146; McLean 2017, 45). He contends that “the writing of ethnography involves telling stories, making pictures, concocting symbolisms, and deploying tropes” (Geertz 1988, 140). While this generally holds true for any form of ethnographic writing, some anthropologists have ventured into writing fictional narratives informed by their field research. This approach has been particularly explored when authors recognize that the subjects of their studies, including other-than-humans (McLean 2017; Musharbash and Gershon 2023; Porter and Gershon 2018), can be more comprehensively captured, embracing their inherent complexity, through the medium of fiction.
A recap
| Genre | Definition | Key features | Ethnographic relevance |
| Tap essay | The tap essay is a digital storytelling format. It delivers its narrative tap by tap—one screen or slide at a time—using rhythm, interactivity, and visual design to guide interpretation.
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Tap essays are sequential and minimal. Readers must interact with the narrative by tapping (or pressing a key) to reveal one phrase or sentence at a time. The format emphasizes pacing, typographic play, visual layout, and affective resonance. It relies on visual cues (font size, color, placement), repetition, and sometimes sound or motion, creating a reading experience that unfolds dynamically.
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For ethnographers interested in multimodal experimentation, the tap essay offers a format that foregrounds affect, mood, and timing. It requires active audience engagement and invites new ways of thinking about voice, structure, and storytelling. The format is particularly useful for sharing personal, situated experiences that are better conveyed through rhythm and minimalism than through conventional prose. It also opens space for representing fragmented, nonlinear, or emotionally charged content. |
| Flash ethnography | Flash ethnography is a short-form ethnographic writing style modeled on flash fiction. It conveys sharp, condensed insights in ~800 words or fewer. | Flash ethnographies begin in the middle of events (in medias res), are stripped of background exposition, and center on vivid detail, affect, and tension. Flash ethnographies are complete narratives—not excerpts—that evoke layered realities with minimal explanation. The genre values compression, partiality, and intensity. | Flash ethnography allows for the representation of moments that are fleeting, affectively complex, or ethically sensitive. It is well suited for conveying the unspeakable, the intimate, or the unresolved aspects of fieldwork. These texts make space for that which resists theory but demands attention, often inviting deep reflection through their conciseness. |
| (Ethno-)graphic novel | (Ethno)graphic novels combine visual art and ethnographic narrative in sequential panels, blending storytelling and research representation. | Graphic novels use panels, close-ups, perspective shifts, and layout to tell stories visually. They capture gestures, interactions, movement, and emotion. Their narrative is conveyed not just through text but through visual pacing, spatial relations, and symbolic elements. This interplay allows for multimodal forms of communication beyond linear narration. | Graphic ethnography provides a public-facing, emotionally resonant form of research communication. It is particularly effective at portraying dynamic processes, embodied practices, or affective experiences. It can make research accessible to non-specialist audiences and deepen collaborative engagement with interlocutors. Graphic elements often communicate across language and literacy barriers, extending ethnographic reach and interpretive potential. |
| Ethnographic fiction | Ethnographic fiction is a genre that uses fictional narrative to represent ethnographic insight. It blends storytelling techniques with field-based knowledge to explore social realities in imaginative ways. | Ethnographic fiction draws on real ethnographic material but reconfigures it through fictional characters, settings, and plots. It often employs literary strategies such as character interiority, dialogue, symbolism, or speculative framing. These narratives do not falsify evidence but offer alternative, creative ways to convey complexity and nuance. | Fiction allows anthropologists to portray experiences that are difficult to fully represent in traditional academic forms, especially those involving other-than-humans, contested truths, or emotional depth. It can explore ambiguity, contradiction, and the unsayable, and it opens new pathways for empathy, critique, and public engagement. Fiction can challenge the boundaries of disciplinary authority and experiment with new epistemologies of representation. |
5.3. Learning activities
Learning by doing
Create a tap essay about a space in which you have lived experience. The space can include your current neighborhood, your childhood city, or a digital space where you spend time. Your essay should tell a story and has a message that is supported by evidence.
As you create your story, reflect on:
- The story’s point of view: Are you telling the story in first-person, second-person, or third-person? Why?
- Sentence types/moods: What is each of sentence moods you are using (declarative, exclamatory, imperative, interrogative) achieve?
- The genre’s affordances: Are you using any of the following features to communicate your message in non-textual (para- or extra-linguistic) ways? How does using these features contribute to/shape the message of the essays?
- Font size
- Font color
- Background color
- Arrangement of words on the slide
- Slide sequences, including creation of zooming in/out effect
- Cropping the picture to focus the attention on the matter at hand
- Using arrows to point at things
- Repetition of words/phrases
- Non-textual/non-visual data: e.g., audio
- Anything else?
- ‘Classic’ essay features: Are you using features of ‘classic’ essay in your tap essay?
- Footnotes
- In-text citation
- Headings
- ANything else?
- Your experience: Finally, how would you describe your experience making and/or viewing a tap essay? What is the genre good for? What can it do effectively? What kind of things you couldn’t do with this format?
The (fuzzy) genre borders?
Select an ethnographic fiction or an (ethno)graphic novel from the provided list of resources (or somewhere else). Read and evaluate the chosen work, considering its similarities to a ‘classic’ ethnography or a non-ethnographic fiction/novel. Identify the ways in which it differs from these genres. Can you readily distinguish the influences of both genres within the text you read? How does this guide your understanding of these ‘in-between’ genres?
5.4. Showcase
Below is a series of comic-style panels illustrating a conversation between Madison Howey – a researcher-artist – and a registered nurse at a community health center. The conversation took place during field research as part of an urban ethnographic field school. These panels highlight the extensive organizing work involved in the organization’s operations.
The panels depict the interlocutor’s multifaceted role, including triaging, assisting physicians, patient education, teaching students, and providing resources and referrals. The researcher-artist uses the visual metaphor of “wearing multiple hats” to symbolize the many responsibilities she juggles. The imagery conveys the complexity and organizational effort involved in her work.
The next series of panels show that the interlocutor’s role is not only multifaceted, but her tasks are also unpredictable. The tasks can range from managing a busy clinic with many patients to quieter days focused on administrative work. The illustrations show different scenarios, including a line of pregnant women, prescription dispensing, and various hats symbolizing different roles. The nurse reflects on the fluidity and adaptability required in her job.
The final set of panels depicts the nurse discussing the evolving nature of her role and the need for adaptable workflows. She talks about learning and adjusting roles based on the team’s current needs and mentions efforts to establish a more standardized approach for future staff. The imagery includes a balance scale with hats, a to-do list, and a chaotic pile of hats representing potential future changes and challenges as the clinic grows and more providers join. The nurse emphasizes the importance of flexibility and clarity in their work.
To ensure confidentiality, the comic-style panels do not show the nurse’s face. The inclusion of “real” images, such as the pill bottle, the computer, and the researcher’s hair, enhances the authenticity and relatability of the scenes. This implies that, although narrated in comic style, the actual conversation was ethnographically captured. On the other hand, the visual metaphors, like the multiple hats and the balanced scale, effectively illustrate the researcher-artist’s interpretation of the nurse’s diverse responsibilities and the dynamic nature of her role. These techniques afforded by the medium of comic panels provide a vivid, engaging representation of the complexities and demands of working in a community health center.
5.5. Insights from experts: Illustrating anthropology
How a UBC researcher used the power of art in community engagement and overdose crisis advocacy
I, Sophie, acted as ethnographer and artist which allowed me to deepen my engagement and harness immediacy as a critical tool to translate peers’ narratives into drawings (Mendonca, 2021). My ability to draw during meetings with collaborators or soon after allowed me to capture unique sociocultural dynamics and elicit instant commentary from peers to generate more nuanced storylines.
– Sophie McKenzie; Peer Life; P. 5
Anthropology and art both encourage us to tell stories. Through illustrations, field encounters come to life in animated representations. In ‘Peer Comic Book Project,’ anthropologist Sophie McKenzie illustrates scenarios and circumstances highlighted and recounted to her via her peer worker collaborators. She emphasizes that “the situations presented here will always be in motion.” This work then captures a “reified snapshot” (McKenzie, 2023, 4). Ethnographic work often strives to connect with the community of focus, improve the lives of those that it analyzes, and be well received by those that it represents, a kind of engagement particularly fitting to attend to the imminent community health crisis that is the drug overdose epidemic. In combining her skills as an artist, activist, and anthropologist, McKenzie delivers her analysis through intimate illustrations with peer workers on the frontlines of overdose response, harm reduction, and care intervention. This project delivers complex individual characters and strives to connect peer workers beyond the British Columbia Lower Mainland by recognizing and attesting to their shared experiences. Graphic work offers an empathetic account that moves beyond the stigma that so often shadows individuals who use drugs or whose lives are imbricated by them. This technique captures different layers of her analysis, lends a sense of transparency to her process, brings her collaborators to life, and invites instant feedback. McKenzie describes how this method drew the attention of her collaborators by engendering curiosity, investment, and rapport in a way that conventional field notes—which tend to be more private and less visually compelling—don’t necessarily. This involves an active engagement with collaborators in the ongoing process of their representations and translations, to convey the unique experiences and burdens of the overdose crisis that they share. In an emotionally-laden community that is often the source of stigma and routinely struck with loss and grief, this sense of engagement, ongoing rapport, and genuine connection is vital to articulating the crisis and envisioning collective approaches. The comic book project was eventually well-accessed and well-received by the community, and resonated with the experiences of her collaborators who advocated for its wide distribution. In attending to the distance that so often accompanies fieldwork and blurring the boundaries between public and scholarly engagement, McKenzie’s work maintains the rigor of academic research while exploring creative approaches to reach broader audiences and extend its impact. McKenzie also recorded fieldnotes throughout the comic book-creation process, some of which can be found in her MA thesis.
McKenzie, S. (2023). The peer comic book project : illustrating peer workers’ experiences working throughout the overdose crisis in the suburban Lower Mainland (T). University of British Columbia. Retrieved from https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0435490
Discussion question
How does Sophie McKenzie’s use of visual representation, particularly through her ‘Peer Comic Book Project,’ challenge and enrich traditional ethnographic methods? What are the potential benefits and challenges of incorporating graphic work in anthropological research?
5.6. Suggested readings
Musharbash, Yasmine and Gershon, Ilana (eds.). 2023. Living with Monsters: Ethnographic Fiction about Real Monsters. Goleta, CA: Punctum Books
For every generic type of monster—ghost, demon, vampire, dragon—there are countless locally specific manifestations, with their own names, traits, and appearances. Such monsters populate all corners of the globe haunting their humans wherever they live. Living with Monsters is a collection of fourteen short pieces of ethnographic fiction (and a more academically inclined introduction and afterword) presenting a playful, spirited, and engaging look at how people live with their respective monsters around the world. They focus on the nitty-gritty dos and don’ts of how to placate spirits in India; how to domesticate Georgian goblins, how to live with aliens, how to avoid being taken by Anito in Taiwan, while simultaneously illuminating the politics of monster–human relations. In this collection, anthropologists working in field sites as diverse as the urban Ghana, the rural US, remote Aboriginal Australia, and the internet present imaginative accounts that demonstrate how thinking with monsters encourages people to contemplate difference, to understand inequality, and to see the world from new angles. Combine monsters with experimental ethnography, and the result is a volume that crackles with creative energy, flouts traditions of ethnographic writing, and pushes anthropology into new terrains.
Benjamin, Walter. 2007 [1936]. “The Storyteller: Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov.” In Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. New York: Schocken Books. 83-109.
“The Storyteller” explores the decline of traditional storytelling in modern society and reflects on its cultural and existential significance. Benjamin examines how the rise of modernity has led to the erosion of the storytelling tradition. Benjamin argues that through the act of storytelling, experiences are passed down from generation to generation, shaping the understanding and identity of a community. However, in modern times, the nature of storytelling has changed. With the advent of technologies like writing, print, and mass media, the transmission of stories has become more fragmented, detached, and individualistic. Benjamin explores the distinct qualities of the storyteller and highlights how this figure, deeply embedded in communal life, possesses a unique ability to connect with audiences, evoke empathy, and impart moral and existential insights. The storyteller, in Benjamin’s view, is a seasoned individual who has experienced life firsthand, carrying within them a wealth of knowledge and wisdom accumulated through personal encounters and shared narratives. This depth of experience enables the storyteller to engage listeners in a profound way, bridging gaps between generations and fostering a sense of collective identity and understanding.
McLean, Stuart. 2017. Fictionalizing Anthropology: Encounters and Fabulations at the Edges of the Human. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
What might become of anthropology if it were to suspend its sometime claims to be a social science? What if it were to turn instead to exploring its affinities with art and literature as a mode of engaged creative practice carried forward in a world heterogeneously composed of humans and other than humans? Stuart McLean claims that anthropology stands to learn most from art and literature not as “evidence” to support explanations based on an appeal to social context or history but as modes of engagement with the materiality of expressive media—including language—that always retain the capacity to disrupt or exceed the human projects enacted through them. At once comparative in scope and ethnographically informed, Fictionalizing Anthropology draws on an eclectic range of sources, including ancient Mesopotamian myth, Norse saga literature, Hesiod, Lucretius, Joyce, Artaud, and Lispector, as well as film, multimedia, and performance art, along with the concept of “fabulation” (the making of fictions capable of intervening in and transforming reality) developed in the writings of Bergson and Deleuze. Sharing with proponents of anthropology’s recent “ontological turn,” McLean insists that experiments with language and form are a performative means of exploring alternative possibilities of collective existence, new ways of being human and other than human, and that such experiments must therefore be indispensable to anthropology’s engagement with the contemporary world.
Stone, Nomi and Carole McGranahan. 2020. “Flash Ethnography: An Introduction.” In “Flash Ethnography,” Carole McGranahan and Nomi Stone (eds.). American Ethnologist website.
Classic ethnographic accounts are usually long. Built upon the idea of flash fiction, Stone and McGranahan describe flash Ethnography as a form of narrative that is intended to be brief and intense stripped of excess. The genre has a condensed and stark storytelling potential as they are compressed and intense, rich in vivid imagery and affect. The genre also offers the opportunity to transform ethnographic material through innovative forms. Stone and McGranahan state that each flash essay is a self-contained whole rather than an excerpt from a larger work. The essays begin in medias res, avoiding lengthy exposition, and invite readers to peel back layers with each sentence. Like traditional ethnography, flash ethnography remains accountable to the real and explores the complexities of being-in-the-world and understanding other worlds. The genre however benefits from the power of brevity and conciseness. Essays that appear in the collection Stone and McGranahan edited are approximately 800 words long, a condensed form that presents its own miniature world while also gesturing outward to broader contexts.
5.7. Other resources
- Otherwise Magazine. Otherwise is “a space for sharing stories that matter.”
- LISSA Graphic Novel. Explore the behind the scenes of creation of an ethnoGRAPHIC novel.
- JUMP+: The Journal for Undergraduate Multimedia Projects. A place for undergraduate digital storytelling projects.
5.8. Works cited
- Benjamin, Walter. 2007 [1936]. The Storyteller: Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov. In Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, 83–109. New York: Schocken Books.
- Brackenbury, Anne. 2015. “How I Learned to Love Comics: An Anthropology Editor Sees the Light.” Teaching Culture website. http://www.utpteachingculture.com/how-i-learned-to-love-comics-an-anthropology-editor-sees-the-light/
- Clifford, James. 1986. “Introduction: Partial Truths.” In Writing Culture, edited by James Clifford and George Marcus, 1–26. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Geertz, Clifford. 1988. Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
- Gordon, Nikki. 2020. “Open the Box.” TheJUMP+: The Journal for Undergraduate Multimedia Projects 10 (1). https://jumpplus.net/issue-10-1/open-the-box/
- McLean, Stuart. 2017. Fictionalizing Anthropology: Encounters and Fabulations at the Edges of the Human. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- Musharbash, Yasmine, and Ilana Gershon. 2023. “Introduction: Here Be Monsters.” In Living with Monsters: Ethnographic Fiction about Real Monsters, 15–29. Goleta, CA: Punctum Books.
- Narayan, Kirin. 1999. “Ethnography and Fiction: Where Is the Border?” Anthropology and Humanism 24 (2): 134–47.
- ———. 2012. Alive in Writing: Crafting Ethnography in the Company of Chekhov. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Pandian, Anand. 2017. “Ethnography and Fiction.” In Crumpled Paper Boat: Experiments in Ethnographic Writing, edited by Anand Pandian and Stuart McLean, 145–47. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
- Pandian, Anand, and Stuart McLean, eds. 2017. Crumpled Paper Boat: Experiments in Ethnographic Writing. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
- Pigg, Stacy Leigh. 2015. “Learning Graphic Novels from an Artist’s Perspective.” Teaching Culture website. http://www.utpteachingculture.com/learning-graphic-novels-from-an-artists-perspective/
- Porter, Natalie, and Ilana Gershon, eds. 2018. Living with Animals: Bonds across Species. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
- Rosaldo, Renato. 1989. Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis. Boston: Beacon Press.
- Sloan, Robin. 2022. Fish: A Tap Essay. https://www.robinsloan.com/fish/
- Stone, Nomi, and Carole McGranahan. 2020. “Flash Ethnography: An Introduction.” In “Flash Ethnography,” edited by Carole McGranahan and Nomi Stone. American Ethnologist website, October 26, 2020. https://americanethnologist.org/features/collections/flash-ethnography/flash-ethnography-an-introduction
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