TOPICS: VISUAL, DIGITAL & SENSORY METHODS in Spring 2027 (CM2091A)

This course examines visual, sensory, and digital experience as social, cultural, political, and technological phenomena. Drawing on visual, sensory and digital anthropology, it explores how people perceive, represent, communicate, and make meaning through images, sounds, bodies, objects, spaces, screens, platforms, and data. Topics may include visual culture, sensory worlds, photography and film, sound and listening, social media, online communities, digital platforms, algorithms, advertising, cities, art and performance, health and illness, war and witnessing, mobility, memory, and environmental experience.

Students combine theoretical study with practical training in visual, sensory, and digital ethnographic methods, such as observational documentary, participatory filmmaking, ethno-fiction, theatrical performance, photography, sensory walks and mapping, and digital ethnography. The course foregrounds questions of ethics, consent, privacy, representation, accessibility, and power. Students complete an independent visual, sonic, digital, or multimodal ethnographic project with a critical methodological reflection.