Digital Art by Tripan123 Image’s source
Multimodal methods opens new sets of questions and ways of collecting, sharing, and presenting research to extend and rework ethnographic forms. Multimodal projects present through a range of registers—from visual or audiovisual techniques, mapping, and experimental writing—that share the aim of making academic work more collaborative, (self)critical, and accessible. As an expansion of many epistemic turns in the discipline—like crises of representation, deconstruction of objectivity, and the ontological turn—multimodal techniques are dynamic, responsive, capable, and collaborative (Westmoreland 2022). Importantly, they necessitate the interrogation of core ways of knowing and producing knowledge that the discipline is rooted in, and push to make research more accessible and ensure that it is valuable to those that it represents. This practice often displays the ‘traces of media’ and foundations that research emerges from to increase transparency and reveal the complexities at the heart of ethnographic processes which are often eclipsed in the presentation of a final product (Westmoreland 2022; Collins, Durington, & Gill 2017). Multimodality aims to provide critical methodological and pedagogical interventions that are better fit for eras of mass disruption, the saturation of many media, cascading crises, and deepening inequalities.
Multimodal techniques are rooted in insights from visual anthropology that emphasize the importance of moving research presentations beyond text to encompass elements that might elude written expression. Calling on other senses in order to discern data displaces the premium on writing and broadens the perceptual impact of research. Coupling writing and images, and exploring the space between them, enlivens what Barthes identifies as the ‘third meaning’ (from Taussig 2011): the total that cannot be described. As Michael Taussig proposes, the ‘third meaning’ is really a ‘gap’ discerned in the relation between the image and writing, that which goes unsaid and refuses to be adequately captured by either expression independently. Written words that undertake representations of cultural realities semiotically elevate facts, and in so doing overshadow the real and “seem to erase the reality [one is] writing about” (2011, 13). Drawings—along with other audiovisual expressions—have the capacity to resist the demands of the written word for contained ‘completeness’ since they are, by contrast, admittedly partial. In Taussig’s words, they “come across as fragments that are suggestive of a world beyond, a world that does not have to be explicitly recorded and is in fact all the more ‘complete’ because it cannot be completed” (ibid.). Multimodal techniques follow in the suggestion that engaging multiple senses can remediate certain forms of cognitive biases or blindness (Westmoreland 2022) and responds to the call to ‘reschool’ our senses’ (Haraway 1988 from Westmoreland 2022). Diverse presentation strategies demand visceral, tactile, and emotional responses of their readership/audience and demand an engagement with the in-between, the invisible, and the unsaid/unwritten.
Multimodality is responsive to existing shortcoming, blindspots, epistemic crises within the discipline, and the need more broadly for social science methods to be revised in light of persistent inequalities and exploitative means at the core of knowledge production in institutionalized settings. Anthropology (along with other academic disciplines) must continually contends with the hypocrisies, ironies, and contradictions inherent to justice-oriented scholarship, and multimodal techniques are in part an outgrowth of these intellectual debates. They absorb lessons from various ‘disciplinary recalibrations’ (Perley 2013) that wrestle with the inside and outside of ethnographic engagement, fragility of objectivity, and tendency of representations to reinforce inequalities. Among other things, this calls for embracing subjectivity in anthropological accounts, and valuing the contributions of ‘native anthropologists’, which in Perley’s words, involve the ‘inversion’ and ‘slippage’ of the discipline’s ‘epistemic stance’ (2013, 103).
Multimodality responds to anthropology’s inheritance of intellectual trends of the Enlightenment in particular, which privilege discursive authority, rationalism, positivism, and empiricism. This propensity imposes interpretive frameworks and a sense of order to anthropological accounts that—while valuable at times—predominantly serve the coherence of the authoritative authorial voice above—and sometimes at the risk of—the subject’s lived reality. In their attempt to capture realities, representations in this trend might neglect important particulars; and in failing to disclose or acknowledge those exclusions, or presenting as thorough empirical accounts, compound the hazards therein. Multimodality works to try and subvert these forms of narrative and epistemic authority in various ways, often by adopting experimental storytelling registers or fictionalizing ethnographic accounts while retaining their truths. For instance, authors like Noah Amir Arjomand gather, ‘compress’, and ‘remix’ multiple interlocutors into one fictional character to craft an account which is ‘true-but-not-real’ (2022). These ‘composite characters’ as he states, present both ‘literary and analytical’ advantages as they work to protect the privacy and anonymity of informants while leaving their insights intact. This tactic also works implicitly, as Arjomand points out, to “[underline] the constructedness of the author’s narrative” (2022). Similarly, the epistemic authority of photographs (which are hyperreal but inevitably framed and assume a perspective) can be upset by multimodal methods through illustrations. As Taussig writes, “drawing intervenes in the reckoning of reality in ways that writing and photography do not” (2011, 13). In keeping with aims of multimodality, these tactics of fiction work to render the author’s interpretation more transparent and dismantle certain conventions of realism.
Multimodal techniques also confront the increasingly scrutinized objectifying gaze often implicated in anthropological accounts. As many have pointed out, the ‘gaze’ maintains the imbalance inherent to research encounters, reinforcing who gets to project and publish stories and who has stories told about them. The cross-discipline crisis of representation contends with critical questions over truth and objectivity, and the concerns regarding the presentation of suffering, documentation of loss, and recording of inequalities. Among other things, this crisis has prompted the ‘reflective turn’ in writing and research (see Rabinow 1977 and Clifford and Marcus 1986) which fundamentally recognizes the problems and fragility of objectivity. By acknowledging the inevitability of writers’ epistemological biases, this turn asks authors to disclose their position and insert their voice within the narrative. This deconstruction of objectivity and subjectivity aims to ‘democratize’ the production of media, increase transparency, and acknowledge that anthropological accounts are always a permeable ‘work-in-progress’ (Collins, Durington, & Gill 2017). This emphasizes that every account involves a degree of ‘slippage’ between realms of understanding and of subjective/objective voices (Perley 2013). These insights push multimodal techniques to probe at the boundaries between subject and object, and of reader, audience, and author, with the recognition that each critically informs and shapes the other.
Anthropology, along with many other forms of research, was always already multimodal (Collins, Durington, & Gill 2017) since it is necessarily imbricated in and dependent on multiple mediums and senses. Multimodal techniques are about bringing these ‘ecologies of media’ to light, attending to them with more deliberation, ‘acknowledging their centrality’ (ibid.), and being more responsive to them. In doing so, they attempt to highlight the collaborative nature of anthropological work and foreground the various media and relations that prefigure research accounts. Field observations and participation, for instance, are never based exclusively on text or speech but on a series of gestures, symbols, actions, graphics, and experiences, so even conversations are replete with other forms of ‘media’ (Collins, Durington, & Gill 2017) . This acknowledgement reframes anthropological work as a form of interpretation rather than a set of ‘findings’, so rather than “imagining data as pre existing entities awaiting collection in our transparent containers, multimodality recognizes the way research mediation actually brings data into existence” (ibid., 179). These traces of media are instrumental to research accounts as they prompt thinking, guide interpretations, anchor memories, and inform analyses; multimodality proposes that their significance be rendered more visible.
Throughout his fieldwork reflections titled ‘I Swear I Saw This’ (2011), Michael Taussig discusses his practice of sketching in his field notes, to imagine and reimagine his observations. ‘Drawing on [his] drawing’ he explores the multiple meanings of drawing and draw in, which describe actual inscription, being impelled towards something or someone, and to lift and unearth details. These multiple connotations invoke the method of drawing as an active technique with the distinct power to prompt, guide, and shape one’s narration. Revealing one’s field sketches then effectively highlights the processes of interpretation, remembering, and analysis with greater transparency to examine what Taussig identifies as ‘the imaginative logics of discovery’. In his project, ‘The Straight & The Sea’, Tarek Elhaik draws attention to the audio data that composes and mediates cetacean-human interactions; he discusses the ‘poetic imagination of marine scientists’ discerned through various instruments and spectrograms that translate the acoustic energy of echolocation. These dynamics of marine environments are integral to what he terms a ‘hetero-ethological imagination’ (2018) that spans ecological boundaries. In highlighting the traces of media that final products emerge—from notebooks, digital mediation, sketches, instruments, drawings, diagrams—as well as those upon which they rely for interpretations —like gestures, performances, audio, acoustics, art, symbols—multimodal methods aim to offer more transparent and dynamic presentations.
Multimodal projects avail themselves of the affordances in other forms of expression; this involves animating research accounts with audio, visual, fictionalized, poetic, and sensorial features that demand different responses and assessments from their audience and readership. These techniques imply that alternative modes of presentation are more suitable for probing certain questions, ideas, arguments, and sentiments, thereby also opening new avenues of research. Fundamentally, multimodality asks that we meaningfully confront the ways in which research is rooted, implicated, and complicit in ongoing forms of dispossession and inequality. Multimodal practices help draw on affect and multiple senses amid the increasing saturation of media; they offer tools to identify and resist forms of ongoing exploitation in knowledge production; and lessons to adapt methods that realize the intentions of a wider set of collaborators in research processes.
By Amelia Paetkau
Works Cited
- Arjomand, Noah, Amir. Figuring Ethnographic Fiction. (2022). American Anthropologist. https://www.americananthropologist.org/online-content/figuring-ethnographic-fiction
- Clifford, James., & Marcus, George. (1986). Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
- Collins, Samuel Gerald., Durington, Matthew., & Gill, Harjant. (2017). Multimodality: An Invitation. American Anthropologist, 119(1), 142–146. https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.12826
- Collins, Samuel Gerald., & Durington, Matthew. S. (2024). Multimodal Methods in Anthropology (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003330851
- Perley, Bernard, C. (2013). “Gone anthropologist”: Epistemic slippage, native anthropology, and the dilemmas of representation (pp. 101–118).
- Rabinow, Paul. (2007). Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Taussig, Michael. (2011). I Swear I Saw This: Drawings in Fieldwork Notebooks, Namely My Own. University of Chicago Press.
- The Strait & The Sea. (n.d.). Antimagelab. https://antimagelab.com/the-strait-the-sea/
- Westmoreland, Mark. R. (2022). Multimodality: Reshaping Anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 51(1), 173–194. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-121319-071409
Discussion question
- How have your personal experiences or observations been influenced by multiple forms of media? Reflect on a specific instance in your life where you have encountered or utilized different media (e.g., visual, audio, written) to understand or communicate an experience. How did these different forms of media shape your perception or understanding of the event?
- Can you think of an example from your own research or studies where a multimodal approach could enhance understanding or communication? Consider a project you have worked on or are familiar with. How could incorporating multimodal techniques (e.g., videos, sketches, sound recordings, objects) have provided a deeper or alternative insight into your research findings?
- How do multimodal methods reflect the current digital and media-saturated environment in which we live? Reflect on how the proliferation of digital media and technology in daily life influences the way we collect, interpret, and share information. How can anthropological research leverage these technologies to produce more engaging and accessible work?
- In what ways can multimodal methods be used to challenge and disrupt power dynamics in research? Draw on examples from your own studies or research you are familiar with where power imbalances were evident in the production and dissemination of knowledge. How can multimodal techniques help to democratize the research process and give voice to marginalized perspectives?